Junkyard Find: 1985 Nissan Maxima
A front-wheel-drive Nissan Maxima in the junkyard must have something special to induce me to shoot photographs. We’ve seen this gig-rig ’86 wagon with pleading note to the tow-truck driver and this super-weird ’86 sedan with brake fluid used as coolant and washer fluid in this series so far, and now I’ve found this extremely rare 5-speed-equipped ’85 in a Northern California yard.
The body is pretty dinged up but there’s no rust. Just over 100,000 miles on the clock of this 1985 Nissan Maxima.
By the middle 1980s, almost no luxury-sedan buyers had any use for a manual transmission. You’ll see the occasional BMW or Audi from this era with a 5-speed, but a three-pedal mid-80s Maxima is about as easy to find as a two-headed snake.
Interestingly, this car has a solid-state version of the phonograph-based Voice Annunciator System used in earlier Datsuns. The harness connector is identical to the one on the early-80s units, but the box is full of digital circuitry.
Naturally, I had to buy it.
I haven’t hooked it up to power and a speaker yet, so I don’t know if the voice is the same as the one on the tiny phonograph in the 1982 version.
Ah, the cult of the Talking Nissan.
In addition to being the Turbo Decade, the 1980s was the Cassette Equalizer Decade as well.
In Japan, schmaltz was applied heavily to the ’85 Bluebird ads.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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Eddie Murphy on talking cars: "I bought an '82 Datsun, only I got it in my neighborhood. Once I turned the ignition and it said, 'yo man, someone stole your battery.' Three seconds later it said, 'I say we go get the m-----f-----s!'"
I created an account here just to say this, I am not a huge car fan, though I do love my 2000 convertible black Trans Am with less than 100k miles. My mom bought a 1985 black regular 4 door 5 speed stick Nissan Maxima new off the lot when I was 16. When I was 21 it had been used a good bit by 1990. My dad died and I went on a suicidal rampage, doing 125 mph in it over 3 counties before blowing the motor. Here is a warning for you and the reason why I came here: this car by a long shot is the most unstable car I have ever driven, at over 100-110 mph and literally bounces around at 125.