I hope you have enjoyed Scotty G’s write-ups as much as I have! I think he is overly fond of Japanese cars, but perhaps it’s the effect of the long cold winters where he lives. When he asked me to have a look at this Nissan recently I was more than happy to, even though it’s Japanese. These 4WD Stanzas are sort of rare because Nissan didn’t sell many of these 4 wheel drive Stanzas and there aren’t many left. They were known as the Multi in Canada and the Prairie in the rest of the world. Unlike other little full time all wheel drive wagons in the 1980s, the Stanza lets you select 2 or four wheel drive. This Nissan is a real survivor with just over 100,000 miles. It is a two owner car and the second owner is flipping it. The sale included the complete maintenance history and boy did the original owner took good car of their Nissan.
Here’s the Craigslist ad Scott found so promising. The ad was taken down after I purchased the car of course. I wonder if anyone believed the “super rare” claim. I have no idea what would make the tires “great” but everything works, including the electric sunroof, because there’s not much else to work. The seller does point out the lack of AC.
The back doors slide open like a minivan with no B pillars. The front and sliding doors lock into the roof and the floor when closed. The window winders cleverly fold so they don’t catch when you slide the doors open. It’s a little taller than a sedan and could be ordered with a rear facing rear seat.
Here’s an ad Scotty found showing how open they are without the seat belts and with the seat reclined. In other countries the seatbelt was mounted on the door
Here’s the 2.0L 97 hp engine. It’s smooth and quiet and doesn’t make much fuss when accelerating. The valve cover gasket seeps and has made a bit of a mess. This would clean up nicely.
This Stanza has an electric sunroof as one of its few options. The sunroof only drips a bit in heavy rain. Scotty was wondering how I would write this up knowing that I am no fan of 1980s Japanese cars. Scotty suggested, and I quote “This piece of Japanese tin can only fools would like…” Some would simply call it “trashportation” but it drives very well even at hi-way speeds, the brakes are great and there’s just a little noise from the right rear strut on bumps. The 5 speed transmission shifts smoothly and the linkage is still precise. Scotty asked me to take pictures of the car so I sent him photos from of a “junkyard gem” featured on the Autoblog site to test his sense of humor. That one is gold, so the rust at least matches the paint pretty well. I don’t know what Scotty plans to do with it besides add new wheels and cleaning it up, but driving Scotty’s old Nissan really is a trip back to the 1980s, no nostalgia intended.
Contact to buy; https://barnfinds.com/little-blue-box-1986-nissan-stanza-4wd/
