A unique Nissan-built car with rearview-periscope on the roof

Weird ONES - Blessed are you who were born prior the 1970s, because you can see and feel the euphoria of a unique automotive design like this. As we all knew this time, Japanese-made cars have spread all over the world in very large numbers and also consist of various types and brands. Some major brands that are very familiar to us include Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Isuzu and Mitsubishi.

The Nissan 216X Concept was included in the first in a series of Nissan test-beds that were clearly influenced by inhouse Citroën designer Robert Opron, and intended to be a design study related to safety issues. (Picture from: Adrianflux)

Of course this is not the result of overnight work, all these production models are the final result of a series of research and development processes in long times carried out by the designers and engineers at each of those car manufacturers. So, on this occasion, we will discuss one of the concept cars made by one Japanese automakers Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. in the 1970s, when the wedge-shaped car design was being a trend during the 1960s to 1970s.

The Nissan 216X Concept featured with the front pillar-less structure with a cantilever roof for excellent forward visibility. (Picture from: CarsThatNeverMadeItEtc)

Besides that, at that time also Nissan has presented many concept car designs, and one of them was the Nissan 216X Concept which will be the topic of this article. This concept car made of 1971 was one of the all-time classic concept cars of Nissan. Like its predecessor the Nissan 126X Concept, this car was included in the first in a series of Nissan test-beds that were clearly influenced by inhouse Citroën designer Robert Opron's Citroën SM, which hit the streets in 1970 after almost a decade of development  to replaced the legendary Citroën DS.

The Nissan 216X Concept also featured with no-less unique such as the front and rear bumpers protrude 150 mm above a certain speed, the rearview-periscope on the roof. (Picture from: Pinterest)

Design influence waxes and wanes almost imperceptibly. There may be nothing new under the sun, but it is diverting to muse on what mood winds blew. Whomsoever influenced who, it seems that only the French company was able to fully exploit the radical explorations of its in house team.

In contrast to other concepts made by Nissan that were presented in the same era, most of which only emphasized the technological sophistication they brought, the Nissan 216X was intended to be a design study by the Japanese manufacturer related to safety issues or Nissan's Experimental Safety Vehicle (ESV). As the result, it's first displayed in public at the 18th Tokyo Motorshow in 1971.

The Nissan 216X Concept is first displayed in public at the 18th Tokyo Motorshow in 1971. (Picture from: OldConceptCars)

As you can see, the Nissan 216X had striking styling and many novel features. One such features were the front and rear bumpers protrude 150 mm above a certain speed, the rearview-periscope on the roof, and the front pillar-less structure with a cantilever roof for excellent forward visibility. If you look closely you might be able to identify subtle echoes of these designs in the Nissan Skylines of the seventies and eighties.

Talking about two unique features embedded in this Nissan concept car as mentioned above, namely a periscope system to view the rear area as well as monitor areas that are in the blind spot (which is usually not visible from conventional rearview mirrors). This periscope is quite large, located on the roof, which in the end contributed the most strange impressions for this car.

The rearview-periscope on the roof feature to view the rear area as well as monitor areas that are in the blind spot (which is usually not visible from conventional rearview mirrors). (Picture from: Pinterest)

Then another feature is the front and rear bumpers which will extend about 6 inches (150 mm) when the car is going to run abov a certain speed, it seems this feature is enabled to reduce the effects of collisions on the front and rear of the car. There is no data on whether these features are effective or not. But certainly neither of these two features are applied to Nissan production cars at this time.

Even though it was developed as a Nissan's Experimental Safety Vehicle (ESV) of 1971, the mechanical heart of the Nissan 216X comes from the Nissan Fairlady Z, which is a transverse-mounted 2-litre 4-cylinder drivetrain which promises a great performance; so it's because of this that perhaps we can forgive the automaker for the Nissan 216X's weirdness. *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | BLOG.GOO.NE.JP | JAPANESENOSTALGICCARS | CONCEPTNISSAN | CARTEFACT | ADRIANFLUX | AUTOMOBILES-JAPONAISES | OLDCONCEPTCARS | HOTCARS | CARSTYLING.RU | STORY-CARS | CLASSICCARS.FANDOM ]

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