I doubt that any of you have ever heard of a Nissan Stagea, I don’t blame you. Neither had I until about 6 months ago. In that 6 months I have ended up in a giddy joyful state which has caused me to purchase one of these great little automobiles.
Now, what the hell is it? Simply, its the estate (wagon) version of the Skyline, specifically the R33 and R34 versions. Technically it is slightly more than that but we’ll stick with that description.
So, why did I buy one?
Wagons are cool
JDM cars are cool
Fast wagons are super cool
RB engines are great
Manual estates (wagons) are cool
Manual, fast, JDM, estate (wagons), with RB engines are really damn cool.
How rare is this double unicorn I hear you cry? 4,015 manuals were ever made. Most of those are wrapped around trees in Japan. Why Japan specifically? They were only ever sold in Japan as far as I can tell. That being said there is a wealth of English knowledge or literature available, unfortunately it’s all in Australia and New Zealand where these cars have quite a cult following.
Now onto the good picture, the pictures. Currently these are the pictures of it at the port prior to shipping (as I type this the boat is on it’s way to Japan to pick the car up, scheduled arrival in the UK is the end of April, at that point more (higher quality) pictures will be available.
The plan, as it stands right now I want to keep it relatively stock for at least the first few months. When it arrives it will get under sealed (not by me thankfully) and will be given a full once over to check for any mechanical weirdness. The only thing I want to do right now is swap the head unit to an Android Auto unit and look into fitting more powerful breaks to it as the stock breaks can leave a little to be desired even for normal use.
If that’s not reason enough for you (or anyone else) to buy one, I don’t know what is. But it might prove to be even more of a driver’s car than its reputation suggests if you treat it right.
Jokes aside, great car mate. Absolute unicorn and my chance of being able to own one despite wanting it to death? NIL.
So yeah, happy for you. Take care of it.
To get it to the UK on the road was a little under £6000 for the car that you see. They can be had pretty reasonably, as long as you don’t have stupid US import laws
In four or five years’ time this issue will be moot - once a particular car is 25 years old, it becomes permanently exempt from all US car safety laws. Unfortunately, that will make it even more difficult to source any surviving examples when that happens, because American collectors will start buying them up in droves, thereby making them even scarcer elsewhere.
Justified since the Japanese didn’t care as much about rust-proofing as their Western counterparts, thereby making their cars more vulnerable to corrosion - a consequence of not using salt to clear away snow from roads during winter.
Or if you don’t live in a stupid third world country, where you’d have to pay 200% of the import price of any car with an engine bigger than 1.9L, like I do
I do plan to shift to Canada from Bangladesh. My original plan is to get a Legend or Vigor after getting there. But if luck favors me well, I might try to get a Stagea as my first real car.
I love a good Stagea, although I’m personally more partial to the slightly newer generation. Great purchase!
This thread is also making me happy that import laws are so lax here in Finland. You can bring any used car no matter the age and just pay the car tax (and potentially VAT) which for an older car would be miniscule since it’s calculated based on the time of the car’s production and it’s used price.
I’m more referring to the fact you also pay VAT on your tax, or tax on your VAT, whichever way round it was. I’m also not sure the tax on things like shipping is justified at all but that’s a different conversation.
It annoyed the wick out of me how efficient and painless the Japan side of things was vs the expense, time and hassle at this side of things.
I won’t bore people with tax talk, no one wants that
Currently it’s just keeping it pretty stock, new head unit and upgraded pads. I believe some work has been done in Japan (air intake, exhaust and new dampers)
I’ve heard of this car few years ago and I was amazed instantly.
You get taxed on your tax! Sure it’s not as mental as other places but it’s a daft system.
