Here’s an absolutely beautiful Nissan Cedric Brougham VIP V6, seen at a Ford dealer in Beijing in May 2016. The classic Nissan sedan was still used as a daily driver, and it was in perfect shape. It also had special blue “京A” license plates.
The Y31 Nissan Cedric
Production of the seventh-generation Y31 Nissan Cedric sedan started in 1987 and ended in 1991. Nissan produced many different variants, for the Japanese market and for export. The Brougham VIP V6 was the top-spec variant of the Y31. It featured high-end black paint, lots of shiny chrome, loads of special badges, and a luxurious interior.
The little white bulges on each side of the bonnet are external indicator markers, small warning lights that light up when the driver is using his indicator. Many Japanese car makers, including Toyota, Nissan, and Honda, used these markers on their luxury sedans until the early 1990s.
The Y31 Nissan Cedric is still a fantastic car, surely one of the best Japanese sedans of that period. It featured a classic sedan profile, with a long bonnet, large windows, a wide C-pillar, and an equally long trunk lid. The design is brilliantly minimalist, and therefore hasn’t aged much.
Old-school super-precise & complex door handle design.
Badges
Nissan created this badge specifically for the Cedric model. Nissan designed many of its premium Japanese-market cars with their own identities rather than simply using the Nissan logo. The emblem was intended to convey elegance, prestige, symmetry, and a luxury image distinct from ordinary Nissan models. The badge on the Y31 is especially pretty, finished in gold with a red background.
The VIP badge on the front fender has the same color scheme. It uses elegant Roman-style serif capitals with raised metallic lettering, giving it a sculpted three-dimensional appearance.
Nissan didn’t stick with just one font! The Cedric font is in a classic-handwritten style, whereas the V6 font looks distinctly modern Japanese.
The Nissan badge on the multi-layered trunk-release button. Again, a complicated design for what it does, just like with the door handle.
The interior of the Nissan Cedric
Yeah, beige-brown! The Nissan Cedric Brougham VIP V6 famously had an all-beige-brown interior. The dash is brown, the center tunnel is beige, and the rest is a mix. The owner added seat covers to protect the original seats. A lucky charm hangs from the rearview mirror.
The original audio system has a CD player and a cassette player.
Japanese sedans of this era were very spacious – look at that legroom. This seat cover design was popular in China in the early 2000s, so the cover is almost as old as the car.
Specifications
The Y31 Nissan Cedric was a large car for its time: 4860/1720/1400, with a 2735 mm wheelbase. Power came from a naturally aspirated 3.0-liter V6 engine with 158 hp and 248 Nm. Nissan claimed a 0-100 accelaration in 10.8 seconds and a 189-km top speed. It was a little thirsty, with an average fuel consumption of 8.5L/100 kilometers. Happily, it had a big 72-liter fuel tank. Nissan mated the engine to a 4-speed automatic or, as in this car, a 5-speed manual gearbox, sending all horsepower to the rear wheels.
Note the third brake light behind the window.
Blue 京A license plates are not the same as black 京A license plates. The blue ones were issued to the first batches of privately registered cars in Beijing, as opposed to cars registered to companies or the government. Most were issued in the early 1990s. The character 京 (Jīng) is short for Běijīng.
The Nissan Cedric in China
Nissan did not officially offer the Cedric Brougham VIP V6 in China, but many cars arrived via the gray market and other murky channels. There were some batch sales too, where Chinese dealers bought entire batches of Cedrics in the US or the Middle East, and shipped them over to China. These days, the Cedric is a super rare sight, but there’s a small cult following around these cars, so some are restored and put on display at local car shows and the like.