Nissan Pao PK10

Nissan Pao (PK10, 1989 to 1991)

I have a soft spot for cars that refuse to take themselves seriously, and the Pao sits right at the top of that pile. It is one of Nissan's four Pike cars, the run of retro oddballs that ran from the boxy Be-1 through the S-Cargo delivery van to the Figaro we already cover here. Nissan spun up a special skunkworks it called the Pike Factory to build them, all styled to look decades older than they really were. The Pao arrived in 1989 looking like a friendly little safari wagon out of the 1960s.

A Micra in a costume

Lift the retro frock and there is nothing exotic underneath. The Pao rides on the same humble Micra, or March K10, bones as its Pike siblings, so it is front-wheel drive with a tiny engine and plain economy-car mechanicals. The styling is the whole show. You get exposed external door hinges like an old Mini, flap-out rear windows lifted straight off a Citroen 2CV, a split clamshell tailgate, and best of all a fold-back canvas roll-top roof that peels away so you can drive with the sky above you. Round headlights and a soft, round-eyed face finish the look. It manages to be utilitarian and cute at the same time, which is a harder trick to pull off than it sounds.

About the charm, not the pace

The engine is a 987cc MA10S four cylinder making about 52 PS at 6,000 rpm. That is not a typo. You could have it with a 5-speed manual or a 3-speed auto, and the manual is the one most people chase now because it suits the mood of the thing. At somewhere around 720 to 760 kg the Pao is feather light, so it pootles about town happily enough, but nobody buys one to win a traffic-light drag. Think of it as a bicycle with a roof and a heater. The reward is simple, cheap ownership that asks nothing of you.

You had to apply for one

Here is the bit I love. Nissan did not just line them up on the forecourt. You applied to buy a Pao inside a fixed window, reportedly across early 1989, and demand went completely daft. Nissan took somewhere around 51,000 applications and the whole allocation sold out in about three months. Production is usually quoted at roughly 31,000 cars, so plenty of hopeful buyers went home empty-handed. It was a proper event, the same ballot-style trick Nissan pulled again with the Figaro two years on.

Buying one

Everything I like about the Pao also tells you what to watch. These are 35 year old cars that were built cheap under the fancy styling, so rust is the number one worry. Get underneath and check the floors and sills, then look hard at the roof frame, because a soft-top car that has lived outside will have let water in somewhere. Study the canvas roof itself for tears and leaks around perished seals, since a good one is worth chasing and a tired one is a real job. The mechanical side is the easy part, all shared Micra kit any decent workshop can sort, but the trim and the Pao-specific interior parts are getting scarce, so a tatty, incomplete cabin becomes a slow headache. Buy on body condition first.

Buy a Pao for exactly what it is. It is a cheap, characterful design icon that turns heads at the servo and asks almost nothing of you mechanically. If you have ever looked at a Figaro and quietly wished it were a touch more rugged and a touch less precious, this is your car.