Nissan S-Cargo

Nissan S-Cargo (1989 to 1992)

Of all Nissan's Pike cars, the S-Cargo is the one that makes me laugh out loud. The other three, the Be-1, the Pao and the Figaro, are pretty little things you park outside a cafe. The S-Cargo is a van. A daft, rounded, snail-shaped delivery van that Nissan built with a completely straight face and sold to florists and bakeries. It came out of the same Pike Factory project as its siblings, and like all of them it rides on humble Nissan March / Micra (K10) underpinnings, front-wheel drive and simple as a brick.

Named after a snail, and proud of it

The joke is right there in the badge. "S-Cargo" reads as escargot, the French word for a snail, with "cargo" doing double duty for the load bay out the back. Nissan leaned all the way in. The body is a rounded, humpbacked shape that genuinely looks like a snail trundling down the road, and I mean that as high praise. Some of the styling nods to the old Citroen delivery vans, right down to a single-spoke steering wheel. Nothing about it is trying to be cool, which is exactly why it works.

What makes it go

Here is where the S-Cargo breaks from the smaller Pike cars. The Be-1 and Pao made do with a one-litre engine, but a van needs to actually haul something, so this one got the bigger 1.5-litre E15 four instead. Power is commonly quoted at around 73 PS, driving the front wheels through a 3-speed automatic. That is not much, and in a boxy van it is never going to feel quick, but it is plenty for pottering about town with a load in the back. Mechanically it is shared Micra kit, so parts are cheap and any decent workshop can look after it.

The quirky bits

The S-Cargo is full of lovely details. Up front there is one big curved wraparound windscreen that gives you a fishbowl view of the road. Some cars carry a round porthole window set into the side panel, which was an option rather than standard fit, and a few came with an electric fold-back canvas roof. Inside you sit two abreast on a bench-style front with the gearshift up on the column, and the big speedo plonked right in the middle of the dash. It is all part of the charm, and it is why people melt when one rolls past.

Buying one

Good news first: because it is basically a Micra underneath, the running gear is cheap and easy to fix. The worry is everything else. These are 30-plus-year-old vans, and plenty of them led hard commercial lives hauling stock, so rust is the big one. Check the floors and the sills, then look hard along the bottom of that big rounded body. The curved windscreen and the porthole glass are unique to the S-Cargo, and both are expensive and hard to source, so a cracked screen is a genuine headache. If a canvas roof is fitted, expect it to leak with age. Buy on body and glass condition above all else, because the mechanical side is the easy part.

Production was only a short novelty run. Wikipedia lists 10,685 built, though you will see figures nearer 12,000 quoted elsewhere, so treat the exact number with a pinch of salt. Unlike the collectible Be-1, a fair few of these were working vans first, worth remembering when you are weighing up a rough one. Buy the best body you can find. It will be the cheapest quirky smile you ever park in the driveway.