Location: Sydney, Australia
Year/ Model: 1985 Nissan Pulsar N12 GL
Colour: Bright red! Oh my gosh so bright red it give me a migraine if I look to closely at it!
Period of ownership: Since January 2010
Performance: Stock
Engine Mods: Stock
Interior Mods: Um....My late Uncle Phil bolted a mini rotating fan to the floor. You plug it into the cigarette lighter. It's my air conditioning!
Exterior Mods: Stock
Wheels: Stock
Future Plans: Planning to keep it stock and use it as a run about. I might paint a mural all over it when the original paint fades...maybe dinosaurs as I am a student of palaeontology.
Pics: I finally managed to borrow a friend's camera and take some photos. However, they are a little fuzzy and the colours aren't true to what they are in reality. They seem kind of faded. At some stage I will show you the engine bay.
Just gotta love that familiar face.
I don't know what warped the rear bumper but it's still pretty solid. I've lost both rear hubcap things. I smashed one trying to reverse park when I was still learning how to work the gears and I lost the other one when I got it serviced.
The seat covers are so 80's and seem to have been on the car since new. The steering wheel cover seems to be a virtual necessity. The vinyl fried my hands in the 40 degree heat. I just love my mini-fan. Really takes the edge off the summer heat.
Read on if you want to know more about the history of this car...
I am the third generation of my family to own this car. The elderly parents of my Aunt bought it off a family friend, as they were moving overseas. The car was 6 months old at the time. They kept the car until their deaths in 2007-08. During the whole time that they owned it, they only used it to go to the shops and back. Therefore by the time it came into my possession, it only had about 150,000 km on it.
The whole time they owned it, they kept it garaged. The exterior and interior looks as new. The plastic interior is virtually undamaged and intact. The seats have always had covers on them, (The covers are very 80's, are starting to tear and I will have to replace them soon.), so the upholstery is almost perfect. The paint is original and still shiny.
My aunt's parents died within a short time of one another after long, protracted illness that may have lasted ten years. They gave the car to my uncle in accordance to their will. Since he already had a car he used this pulsar as a golf caddy on the weekends. I think it's been sitting in the garage for the best part of the past decade or longer.
My Father bought the car off my Uncle for me. My uncle told me the rattling was no issue....that turned out to be a cracked exhaust manifold. The car had multiple problems when I took it to be re-registered that cost a lot of money to fix. The repair list was three pages long! I was probably ripped off but I am a 23 year old girl with not much mechanical knowledge. I needed the pink slip quickly, so I had to bite the bullet. I hope that by joining this site people can help me make wise decisions about repairs. The next lot of repairs sounds expensive. I will mention them elsewhere and ask for advice.
It has responded well to maintenance (I don't think it was ever professionally serviced at least in the past ten years). When I got it back from the repair shop it was like a different car, as if at least 6 years of wear stripped away. It seems more powerful and zippy now. It appears to have more power in the lower gears as a 91 Corolla and to be just as fuel efficient as a Toyota Echo. I get consistent 6 litres per 100 km. That was on an engine out of tune with dirty oil.
Despite the neglect this little thing endured, it has given me no problems in terms of reliability. It started every time even though all the spark plugs were failing. I used it to move house at quick notice. I loaded it up really heavily, tore down the M5 at 100 km/hr and it did not give me a problem despite the fact that it had the busted exhaust manifold, leaking rear brake cylinders, oil leaks and a million other things going wrong. I did have to brake really heavily too. The clutch is starting to slip. It has allowed me to escape two very nasty domestic situations since I relocated to Sydney from Tasmania, one of which I had to bring to the police. This car is my lifeline! I would feel trapped without it!
It's funny to think that when this car rolled off the production line, my parents were newlyweds thinking of babies. The car is a year older than me. This is my first car and my first manual as well. My Uncle gave me lessons on how to drive it for four days and I have had to adapt alone from there onwards. The funny thing is that the instant I drove this car, I felt like I was reunited with an old friend. I have a connection with this car, like I can understand it's language.
