Your eyes do not deceive you. This is a wagon with a 620 front, and it’s not a one-off custom. It’s an actual car produced in an actual factory, and any Google searches conducted for it seem to only return this particular yellow example. Suffice it to say, it’s pretty darn rare.
Technically speaking, the car is not a Nissan. Or a Datsun. It’s a YueLoong YLN-753W. Yueloong was a Taiwanese automaker that licensed designs from Nissan and assembled them them locally for decades. If you visited Taiwan in the 90s, you would have seen Cedrics, Bluebirds, Sentras, and more, all wearing the Yueloong badge. In the case of the 753W, or Thunderbird as it was also called, Yueloong took the liberty of grafting a wagon body onto the 620 chassis.
The rear seems to be styled from the Datsun 610 wagon, and the upward sweep in the rear doors recall the Datsun 710 wagon though doesn’t match it exactly. You can tell it’s a wagon on a 620 frame because the wheels have six lug nuts.
Curiously, the dashboard has a “D” on it, even though the letter doesn’t appear anywhere in the car’s name. It’s also got a cool column-mounted manual gear shift. The C-pillar has a badge that says “Wagon” on it.
The engine was a 1.5-liter inline-four putting out 77 horsepower, making it likely a carry-over J15 engine from the Datsun 521.
Whatever the case, there doesn’t seem to be many of these around. This lone survivor is the only actual car that turns up in Googling and appears to be owned by a Taiwanese beach bum. In fact, the only other images of the 753 we could find were from old newspaper articles and ads.
Here, for example, is a newspaper article showing a 753W in use as an official car at Tsinghua University. Another image was from a brochure for sale on a long-dead auction.
The practice of putting wagon bodies on YueLoong trucks appears to have begun with the 521, which can be seen in an old ad in a four-door wagon body style. Who knows if any of these cars exist anymore. Taiwan’s environment isn’t exactly friendly to old cars, so even the yellow one could be long gone.
Images: ytseng3
Hope there is still one or two of these still around.
There is a relatively new Washington State license plate in the back window. I assume the owner might have a connection there. Maybe someone in Seattle knows about this?
The 620 truck is strongly related to the 610 Bluebird, which is exactly what Yuelong did. The wagon parts are Bluebird, probably the interior included with a more durable 620 suspension to deal with the local roads. If 4WD was offered on the Yuelong truck for that year, it wouldn’t surprise me if 4WD was available on the wagon, just for giggles.
Its like a mini Datsun Suburban!
a mini Datsun Suburban… not only an apt description, but makes me want one badly! Not only do I love 620’s, but also Chevy Suburbans! Damn…
There is a 1972 Datsun U620 currently on ebay from Costa Rica. It’s the “ute” version, with the tiny pickup bed instead of a trunk. It has the 620 front end and the 620 “spears” along the front fenders & doors. Definitely unique!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1972-Datsun-u620-1500CC-/162550196183?hash=item25d8bf27d7:g:tpAAAOSw-3FZA6ig&vxp=mtr
Since there is a wagon badge to inform you that it is in fact a wagon, I imagine the D is to inform you that is the Driver’s side. 😛
Datsun did this as far back as the early 60’s. Look up the VPL-221
You are correct. I meant that YueLoong seems to have done it as early as the 521. I’ve edited the last paragraph for clarity.
The development of this vehicle could easily have been a contributing factor to the WD21 Pathfinder…station wagon body on a truck chassis, with four doors added at the first model refresh.
In other 620 news, Round2 is planning to reissue the MPC plastic model kit with all stock parts restored.
This wagon makes for a tempting model project…
Another thought – this has a manual column shift. I’d seen those in UK-market brochures for the equivalent Toyota and Isuzu models from well into the ’80s, but had gone on the assumption that they were for RHD markets only.
Me likey! A smaller wagon on a truck frame – YES! If the above theory is right that there may have been some 4WD versions put out, that’d be freaking awesome!
I’ll admit I’m not sure about a column-shift stick (never driven one), BUT (here it comes!), stick shift with AWD/4WD could make me a happy boy!
(The U.S. gets seriously ripped off in the manual transmission and AWD arena… I looked up the new Toyota C-HR; I think it was on the Poland site where they had stick OR AWD. Okay, so I’d take the stick, and get the AWD for mom. [Post-lottery winning, of course.])
Strange you only came up with the yellow wagon on Google image search, but I came up with a lot of wagons (and trucks) by Googling for ‘Datsun 620’. Check it out!
I have an U520 and an U620 in Costa Rica, I want to export them in order to sell them in the US
It doesn’t have the traditional 620 bullet side “dent”
Sweet looking car. I’ve seen my share of Datsun 620 trucks, and I used to see some Datsun 610s, but I’ve never seen one made from the other. I do like the column gearchange for the manual transmission. I’ve never seen that on a Datsun after 1970.