Rare Rides: The 1989 Nissan S-Cargo - It's Van Time

Today Rare Rides takes a look at another one of Nissan’s special Pike cars from the turn of the Nineties. This tiny van is definitely the oddball of the Pike family. It’s an S-Cargo, from 1989.

The first Pike car we featured was the Pao, a clamshell hatchback that borrowed styling cues from European cars of the 1960s. Its industrial, utilitarian look was backed up by a basic interior of simple shapes and minimal levels of complexity. Next up was the oldest issue of the Pike experiment, the Be-1. A two-door sedan, it blended styling from the late Seventies with the appearance of a hatchback.

The S-Cargo took a much different route than those two. First offered for sale in 1989, the S-Cargo was classified as a light commercial vehicle rather than a passenger car. Designers drew inspiration more directly this time: Their muse was a Citroën 2CV delivery van, “Fourgonnette” in Parisian.

Keeping with the derivative theme, all S-Cargos featured a single-spoke steering wheel — a Citroën hallmark. The model’s name was a two-layer dad pun. S-Cargo meant “small cargo,” and was a wordplay on the French word for snail, “escargot.” In addition to a generally snail-like shape, the model’s logo (which is deliciously Seventies looking) was a snail.

Like the other Pike cars, the S-Cargo lacked Nissan branding and was available only via reservation. A total of 8,000 were produced for model years 1989 through 1991. Also like its siblings, it had the underpinnings of a Micra. In this case, that meant a 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine, mated to a three-speed automatic.

Today’s Rare Ride is an excellent condition example located in Seattle. It has both optional extras: the portal windows on the cargo area, and an electric canvas roof. With 32,000 miles on the clock, it asks $12,500. Small price to pay for a snail you can drive.

[Images: seller]