We’ve talked about many of these cars individually, but Pink Tentacle recently collected a bunch of Japanese concept cars all in once place. Here are some of Nihon’s wildest from the golden age of show cars. Above is the 1971 Nissan 216X.
1969 Isuzu Bellett MX1600 by Ghia.
Isuzu MX1600-II.
1969 Toyota EX-1.
1969 Toyota EX-III.
1970 Mazda RX-500.
1970 Nissan 126X.
1970 Nissan 270X.
1972 Toyota EX-7.
1973 Toyota F101.
1975 Nissan AD-1.
1983 Nissan NX-21.
1985 Nissan CUE-X.
See more at Pink Tentacle.
Hat tip to gokiburix.
is it just me or does that Nissan AD-1 look remarkably like the AW11 MR2? Especially the rear end!
Nice lineup of concept cars! I have never seen photos of some of these. 🙂
But I’m missing the Toyota EX-11 and SV-2 in the list here. The EX-11 and SV-2 styling eventually made it almost unchanged to the Soarer and Celica XX production cars. Eespecially the EX-11 was a very very advanced concept car: it lacked keys, had onboard navigation, radar (upcoming traffic) and sonar (parking sensors) to safeguard the car.
I would take that green Mazda to the woods and make out with a honey any day…
Beautiful, simply beautiful.
However, the million dollar question is: “Where are they today?”
Stunningly gorgeous cars! When Italian car design is put on trial for being criminally overrated I,the prosecutor will call this “exhibit A”. 😉
the toyota ex-1 looks like the prototype to the celica. interesting.
The things I’d do for that 270X…
1st gen Celica was based off of the EX-1.
Let’s get some more recent ones too, like the Nissan MID4.
*high five*
Just more evidence that the 1970’s were the golden age of form development and that Italians should not be allowed to design anything but Italian cars.
You can see where the 270X’s design made it into the Cherry X-1.
Last, I effin’ loved the revival of Art Deco and deconstructivism in the early 2000’s, seen mostly in the Nissan Armada, Isuzu Axiom (that one’s getting rare!) and Chrysler’s Pacifica and Crossfire. There’s a website dedicated to old College for Creative Studies student models from the 1990’s that has a section dedicated to that form language. I’ll have to go find it again.
Please do, I’d love to see those pics!
Ben, here it is. Even better than I remembered!
http://web.me.com/olsenark/site/Home.html
Enjoy 🙂
That Nissan 216X looks very Rover SD-1 at the front.
The isuzu bellet and mx1600 look like the Ford Pantera.
I’ll take the keys to that Nissan 126X !!
Right out of Ridge Racer 4, the programmers maybe had a few of these on the wall as kids.
The Toyota EX 1,2,and3 made me laugh!
“Let’s make a sports car!”
“No! That ones been done, let’s make
a tiny little economy car!”
No! we’re goimg with the sports car!
Now there’s a coincidence…
Just last week I found my Matchbox version of the Nissan 126X, in a lurid 1970’s yellow and orange paint scheme (with flames!). Even as a kid, I wondered how the occupants were able to see over the dashboard!
Was the 1971 Nissan 216X designed to look like a Citroen SM?