The Nissan Cedric taxi was once a staple of Japanese streets. It was also once a staple of Japanese car chases, where cheap 230s and 330s were sacrificed to to gods of Showa Era police dramas. To be fair, Toyota Crowns were just as common, but Nissan secured better deals with TV producers.
The video above contains three separate car chases from different shows. The first one, involving some yaks pursuing a hapless cabbie, both in 230 Cedrics, is from The Big City. Like so many chases, the cars barge into an active construction site and there seems to be a another 330 taxi hanging back to observe the chaos.
The second and third clips are from Seibu Keisatsu, the ever-reliable source of Nissan carnage. It’s not clear what’s going on plot-wise; all we know is that the poor 510 Bluebird that gets its door bent the wrong way is quite painful to watch. It should be noted that in both of these videos, Cedric doors come falling off for no good reason, which perhaps isn’t quite the ad Nissan was hoping for when they donated the cars.
Nissan was a sponsor for both The Big City and Seibu Keisatsu, so Cedrics are driven by the gangsters, cops, and rogue taxi drivers. It’s like the Ford Panther platform of Japan.
“Toyota Crowns were just as common, but Nissan secured better deals with TV producers.”
Same thing in Hollywood, looking at shows from the ’50s-70s you’d never know that GM at its’ peak had a 52% market share because Ford and Chrysler were so much more aggressive with product placement. I wonder if Toyota had the same fear of being seen as a near-monopoly even if MITI was unlikely to trustbust them as was seriously considered by the FTC with GM until about 1970.