Nissan Chapeau

I’ve always been a square car enthusiast. Try as I might to wash my mind of this semi-secret shame, I cannot. In a world where muscle cars, beefy trucks, teutonic LED shows, and traditionally svelte sports cars, I’m locked in, poring over every detail of the 1989 Nissan Chapeau concept car.

You may have read about this car before, but without the bookend of the other weird cars I’ve written about through 1988, 1989, and 1990. (Yes, you can search by make, model, and year on the website.) 

Kind of like how one would artfully organize the inside of a box truck for maximum efficiency, I see a publishing CMS like the Chapeau: as an empty volume to be prized for its minimal aesthetic, and then filled up with nonsense.

We can debate whether or not concepts like this are the correct strategy for an automaker — dumping millions of dollars’ worth of creativity, craft, and show — but I’ve located a huge number of never-before-seen Nissan Chapeau photos that will be put to good use as an empty volume for you to draw your own conclusions of.

Is it a city car? A van? Or something in between, like a square S-Cargo?

This is what Nissan, at or near the top of its game, cooked up for its home auto show: