1988 Nissan Pulsar NX - Overnight Stay

Next door to where I now work is a towing company that the city contracts to tow and store cars driven by, allegedly, DWI offenders and various other offenses. I've been at this job four months now and I'm amazed at not only the steady flow of cars and trucks that come and go but the variety of different makes and models in all sorts of condition from showroom new to rolling death trap. I've stayed away from the impromptu sin bin until last week when this 1988 Nissan Pulsar NX made an overnight pit stop. I just had to have a closer look.

I have fond memories of these cars because when I first met my wife her older sister had a red, five-speed Pulsar just like this. Their father had a top of the line "NX-SE Twin Cam" version in silver. The extra go of the 1.8 liter twin cam engine was all but negated by it having an automatic. The down market 5 speed my wife's sister had was way more fun to drive.

Her sister bought hers because fresh out of college and flush with cash from a job as a merchandiser for a cigarette company, my future mother in law insisted she do something with her paycheck rather than blowing it on clothes and traveling and who knows what else she was burning her paycheck on. Cheaper than buying a small house or condo, I guess and it helped build a credit rating for her too. "Dad" bought his because...well, I'm really not sure. He was purportedly a sports car lovin' kinda guy and he traded in his trouble prone Chrysler Conquest for it. Despite its sharing much with the Sentra, it was as difficult to get in and out of as the Conquest was without even the remotest pretense of  high performance like his Conquest had.

Seeing that twenty somethings today are so into do-it-all cross overs, it's almost hard for me to remember how and why these oh-so-impractical 2+2's appealed to young people and the young at heart (like my father in law) back then. However, I have to remind myself just how different things were in the '80's. Especially on Long Island where nobody, well, next to nobody, used a truck of any sorts as daily transportation let alone an SUV. Speaking of which, when I think about it, had the term "sport utility vehicle" even been coined yet? And the closest thing to a cross over back then was AMC's Eagle and no one under the age of forty would have been caught dead in that thing. As far as driving something more practical, like, say a four door sedan, that was verboten lest we be construed as being a parent before our time.

That's not to say, though, that if today's slick cross overs and SUV's were available back then they wouldn't be a hit either. Cross overs not only do it all these days, they look great doing it too. (There. I said it). And they scratch the same itch in young people today that sporty coupes scratched years ago. That means, sadly, sporty little cars like this are dead, buried and won't be making a comeback any time soon. Nary a manufacturer has any plans to bring anything like it to market in the next five years. More cross overs and even wagons? Oh, you bet. But sporty little throw a ways like this? Nope.

Thanks for the traipse down memory lane, little red Pulsar NX. Hopefully you stopped by because of something less nefarious than a DWI. I'll tell my wife and her sister you stopped by. Their dad passed back in 2007.