We recently learned that Nissan's clone of the new Renault Twingo EV will also have a retro design, inspired by a car from the same era.
The Be-1 is far less known than the Mk1 Twingo, having been exclusive to Japan, but far more significant in terms of influence on future design.
When Nissan exhibited the Be-1 concept car at the 1985 Tokyo show, Autocar's reaction was a one-line dismissal: "cheeky ugliness".
Yet the Japanese public reacted by mobbing the little Micra-based hatchback, and the only words its lead designer, Naoki Sakai, heard each day were 'kawaii' and 'hoshii!', meaning 'how cute' and 'I want it!'.
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This discord can probably be explained by the newness of 'retro' as a concept – the word itself had entered the English lexicon only a decade prior – and its peculiar prevalence in Japanese culture, especially among the young.
Whereas Minis were ten a penny in London, they were the dream drive for trendy Tokyoites - and the older the better.
So the Be-1 was approved for a small production run of 10,000 and, despite it being mechanically identical to the breathless and anodyne Mk1 Micra yet three times pricier, demand was overwhelming to the extent that Nissan had to run a lottery for build slots.
Naturally, Nissan got fully behind the 'Pike Factory' team that had imagined it, leading to the 1987 debuts of the Pao and S-Cargo another supermini and a small van, again Micra-based.
"The Pao is basically a '40s jungle car or at least that's the image Nissan wants to portray," we commented.
"Inside, you get a simple metal dash with a large single speedo, old-fashioned flick switches and brilliant period-look radio that was designed for the car. The safari theme continues with simple hemp-like seat trim and authentic-looking satchels for maps on the backs of the front seats.
"S-Cargo, in case the joke has passed you by, is a clever play on the French word 'escargot', and this snail-shaped device is essentially a modern Japanese interpretation of the Citroën 2CV. Cute, weird, fun – they're all adjectives that apply to the S-Cargo's 'retro' styling, which is so completely over the top that you can't help but fall for it."
Isamu Suzuki was the general manager of Nissan's Product Planning and Marketing Group Number Four – but universally known as Mr Be-1.
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All credit to any designer and car company that subscribes to the idea of fun. You shouldn't have to be restricted to buying some £150,000+ 2-seater 1000bhp monster to make driving enjoyable. Make it cheap, make it available, make it fun . The other things, safe, economical etc should be givens. Just let people enjoy driving around without the aggression, the competitive adolescent narcisism and the rest. Fun will sell, as a few cars are starting to prove already.
Nissan did not 'introduce' retro design to the car industry, both Austin Rover and Jaguar were at it long before! The Series III XJ was arguably a deliberately retro design in an era of angular Mercedes and BMW designs, the Mini was still on sale as a de facto second-generation model deliberately because everyone liked the retro design and it was 'desirably retro' in the era of the angular MiniMetro that was supposed to replace it... and which the Mini out-lasted by a few years. Ironically it was Japan that helped keep the Mini going by demanding catalysors and fuel injection for emissions rules... not an easy conversion for the A-series, but AR managed it and helped make the A-series on of the longest-serving engines in the world.