The Nissan Silvia, Nissan's luxury sports coupe
from the mid 1960s, haslong been shrouded
in mystery and the subject of many half truths andwildly
inaccurate stories. The aim of this page is to present accurateinformation about the Silvia. If you have anything to
add or if you feelanything on this page is
not 100% accurate, please e-mail
me and let me know.
You can make your way through this page at your
own pace, or use one of these links to jump straight to the section you
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The Nissan Silvia CSP311 made it's public debut at
the Tokyo Motor Show in September of 1964. For the design of the Silvia,
Nissan engaged the services of a German designer by the name of Count
Albrect Graf Goertz. Goertz was trained in Germany and in the 1950s traveled
to the United States where he worked for Studebaker, designing the
Studebaker Starliner. He then returned to Germany, where he was employed
by BMW. His work at BMW included the gorgeous 507 convertible. He then
moved to Porsche, where he was part of the design team working on the
911. In the 1960s he was on his way to Nissan. His
first job there was to take over the Silvia project. According to Goertz, the
Japanese designers saw the design process as being an amalgamation of seperate
ideas. Goertz designed the car as a single entity that included many of his
trademark features seen previously on cars like the BMW 507, such as a long
bonnet line that lunges forward of an open grille, large wheels and wheel
arches and small, delicate bumper bars. The Silvia was the first Japanese car
designed using a full scale clay mock-up. Goertz later worked on other projects for Nissan
including a four seater version of the Silvia that never reached production.
He also came up with the concept and initial designs for the Datsun 240Z,
unfortunately Nissan chose to heavily redesign the 240Z, eventually settling
on a blander design for the production version, rather than the bold design
by Goertz. .
Silvia Body Construction and Mechanical Details
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The Silvia's body work was all hand built,
with hand beaten panelwork of extraordinary quality, every Silvia I have seen
has near perfect panel gaps and flawlessly straight panels. Unfortunately
the parts of the car you don't usually see, such as behind the interior upholdstery,
behind the dash board and in the wheel arches, are all incredibly
rough. They feature vaguely fitting sheetmetal with big daggy lumps of weld hanging
off and sharp edges where you can see the tin-snip marks along the edges.
(I've recieved many injuries from sharp edges under the Silvia while working
on the four Silvias I've restored) As a result of this behind the scenes
roughness, the Silvia is the only Early Datsun to encounter rust problems,
usually causing some headaches with the sills, the bottom of the doors,
the foot wells and the bottom of the wheel arches. Having said that, the
Silvia is still better than many cars of the same era and can be easily modified
when restoring the car. She is built with quite thick guage sheetmetal which
is great for the quality of the car but the extra weight detracts from it's
performance. The Silvia sits on a modified Fairlady 1500
SP310 chassis, the main differences being the addition of new bumper bar mounts
and some changes to the mounting points for the body. The floor
pan is mostly derived from the SP310. She sat on 14" wheels that
were 4 1/2" wide (the 14" wheels fitted to the later Fairlady 1600 SP311 were
only 4" wide). She was the first Japanese production car fitted with disc brakes,
using Dunlop Sumitomotwin piston callipers
(the same as those used on the E-type Jaguar and the Ferrari 330) operating on 284mm rotors. These were
later used on the SP311. At the back were the 228mm drum brakes from the Fairlady
1500. Most of the front end and steering was carried over
from the Fairlady 1500, the only major differences being spring rates and
different hubs. This meant she had double wishbone independant front suspension
and a leaf sprung live rear axle. Steering was via a cam and lever box
with a 14.8:1 ratio. Power was delivered via a 4.11:1 ratio hypoid bevel
diff. (optional 3.889:1) The electrical system was a departure from
the norm for Nissan, being the first of their cars to be fitted with a 12 volt negative
earth system (all previous Datsuns had 12 volt positive earth). She also
used an alternatorinstead of the usual generater. .
Silvia Engine & Gearbox
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The Silvia was the first car fitted with Nissan's
new R engine. The R engine was a further development of the 1488cc G engine,
which was a massively improved version of the Austin B series engine, which
was borrowed from Austin during their post war alliance. The R engine
was a 1595cc over head valve engine with a 3 bearing crankshaft. The bore
size was 87.2mm and the stroke 66.8mm. It was fitted with two 38mm Hitachi
SU carbs and a light weight pressed steel exhaust manifold. It produced
96hp at 6000rpm and 103ft-lb of torque at 4000rpm. Later cars had an R
engine with an alloy head and a 5 bearing crankshaft. The Silvia's engine
was later used in the Fairlady 1600 and the Bluebird SSS RL411. A single
carb version was later used in the Datsun Homer truck, the Datsun forklift
and numerous other vehicles. It was later bored out to 2 litres and called
the H20, this was used in commercials until the 1980s. The Silvia was the first Datsun to have synchromesh
on all forward gears. She had a 4 speed close ratio gearbox with Porsche
type servo-synchros and a floor change selector. Ratios were:- 1st 3.382,
2nd 2.013, 3rd 1.312, 4th 1.000 and reverse 3.365. It was also the first Datsun
to have a single plate clutch with diaphragm springs, previous ones had single
plates with coil cushioning springs. Clutch diameter was 200mm. .
Silvia Dimensions
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The Silvia weighed 978kg, substantially more
than the Fairlady's 920kg, which explains the need for the 4.11:1 diff, so it
can keep up with the Fairlady (with a 3.889:1 diff) under accelleration.
Silvia's vital statistics are :- Overall length - 3985mm Overall width - 1510mm Overall height - 1275mm Wheelbase - 2280mm Front track - 1270mm Rear track - 1198mm Ground clearance - 170mm .
Silvia Sales Figures
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Many books have refered to the Silvia's sales
figures as being disappointing or as one book said "a failure", due to the fact that
they only sold 554 of them. I doubt Nissan intended to build many more than
that, if they did they would have geared it up for a full production
run rather than hand assembling each car, which is a slow and expensive
way to build a car, especially if you want to make a lot of them. The
other reason they weren't likely to sell a lot of them was the price. The list
price in Australia in 1966 was $4390, which mean't it was far brom being a cheap
car. To give you an idea of how expensive it was, here's a list of prices
of other cars in 1966. Nissan Silvia $4390
Datsun Bluebird $1798 Datsun Fairlady $2690
Nissan Cedric Custom 6 $2950 Alfa Romeo Giulia $3730
Citroen ID19 Parisienne $3476 Holden Premier $2660
Honda S600 convertible $1990 Prince Skyline GT $2850
Jaguar Mark 2 $5086 MGB $2840
Lotus Super 7 $2900 Lotus Elan $4300
Mercedes-Benz 200 sedan $5088 Morgan Plus 4 $2880
Triumph TR4 IRS $3580 Nissan and Datsun were also virtually unknown brand
names in most countries in the 1960s, the fact that they sold as
many Silvias as they did at that price against cars such as the Lotus Elan is
a testament to the exceptional quality of the car. Nissan gives the following production and sales
figures for the Silvia. These figures represent both right hand drive and left hand
drive models. They were all right hand drive, with the exception of one
left hand drive prototype. YEAR
PRODUCTION DOMESTIC SALES
EXPORT 1964
27
0
0 1965
422
222
2 1966
20
161
53 1967
67
51
2 1968
18
37
1 1969
0
8
1 1970
0
1
0 1974
0
1
0 TOTAL
554
481
59 There's a few odd things about Nissan's official figures,
one of them being why was a car sold in 1974, a full 6 years after the
last one was built. The other thing you will notice is the domestic sales
plus the export sales equal 540, which is 14 cars short of the 554 production
total. What happened to the missing 14 cars ? Two possibilities are
that they went to some executives in the Nissan Motor Co. and as a result didn't show
up as sales, or they were the prototypes. The other possibility is the abacus
got stuck in the auditer's office! I'm not sure which countries recieved the
Silvia. I know that 49 were sold in Australia, so that left 10 for the rest of
the world. The Silvia I currently own was sold new in Papua New Guinea and
shipped privately into Australia. In my collection of sales brochures I have
a Silvia brochure from the United States. It has a USA address on it and
the car has badges that say "Datsun Coupe 1600" instead of the usual "Nissan Silvia"
badges. This leads me to believethey were
sold in the USA, but going on the above info it was no more than9 cars. In Australia the cars all wore Nissan Silvia badges
but they were marketed as the Nissan 1600 Coupe. The Australian sales brochures
referedto them as the Datsun Coupe 1600 and
some local motoring magazinescalled the car
the Datsun 1600 Coupe or the Nissan GT Coupe (though most called it Sylvia). The Nissan name on the car confused some people,
as most cars built by Nissan were called Datsuns. The reason for this is
that they were marketing their less expensive cars under the Datsun name
(Datsun Bluebird, Datsun Fairlady) and the more up-market cars were being marketed
under the Nissan name (Nissan Cedric, Nissan Silvia), a similar
situation to today, where the cheaper cars are Nissans and the luxury cars
are called Infiniti. .
Silvia Chassis Numbers
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Another interesting thing about the Silvia
is that the ID plate under the bonnet is printed in Japanese, they never bothered
to print an English one. It also lists the engine's horsepower figure as 90
P.S. (whatever the hell P.S. is) rather than as 96hp. The chassis numbering is
a little odd too. The number stamped on the chassis and the ID plate begins
with the SP311 prefix, leading you to think it is a SP311 Fairlady
1600 chassis. The thing that tells you it's a Silvia chassis is the first
of the 5 numbers after the dash in the chassis number, all Silvia chassis start with the
number 7. for example Silvia number 231 (my car) has the chassis number SP311-70231.
All Fairlady 1600s have a number starting with 0, for example SP311-01060.
(While on the subject of chassis numbers, all pre 1965 Datsuns except
for the Silvia, have a middle number
between two dashes, example SP310-4-00123, the middle number tells you
the year the car was made, for example, a -4- indicates a 1964 car, a -3-
is a 1963 car, etc. Many people think they have a very early car, thinking
their SP310-4-00005 is the 5th car made, but the numbers start from 00000 at
the start of each year,so SP310-4-00005 is the 5th car built in 1964.) The Silvia
also has a body number as well as a chassis number, the only Datsun I know
of with one. The body number is stamped on the body on, of all places, the
small tower structure in the boot (luggage compartment) that holds the striker
bar for the boot lock. When you open the boot, look down at the striker.
Between the striker and the lip of the boot opening you'll see the 3 digit
number, why they put it there I'll never know.If you can't see it you may
have to scrape off the paint(ouch) to see it. Also the number is written, with a thick
felt pen, on the back of nearly every large non-painted part of the car. The
door trims, the metal upholdstered panels in the cabin, the bumpers, centre
console, dashboard, they all have it. At first I thought it was a bit
odd, and excessive, but I soon learned the hard way, why they are all numbered. At
one stage I owned 3 Silvias, all in need of restoration, I thought I'd
make one really good car with the best parts and 2 not as good cars with the
rest. But when I went to swap parts off one car and onto the other they wouldn't
fit !!!!! They didn't even come close. Fully hand built cars have their
panels formed to roughly the right shape on a jig (see the photos of the
Silvia jig in the photo section), then they are formed to their final shape while building
the car, all the panels being beaten into shape to suit the rest of
the car. As a result of this method of construction, every part is unique to that
car. On a Silvia the bumper bars won't fit properly from one car to the
other, nor will the doors or the bonnet. One of my cars was fitted with a replacement
(brand new) front guard, this left gaping great 11mm panel gaps.
The brand new guard had to be beaten into place to make it fit. .
Silvia Interior
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The interior of the Silvia is quite small,
but surprisingly comfortable. The foot wells are very deep, which allows plenty of legroom.
I'm 5'11" and if I have the seats in the 2nd of the 2 seat holes and
have the seat set all the way back, I can't properly reach the pedals. Headroom
is a different story. I have just enough room to put my hand between my head and
the ceiling. You learn to duck if you hit a big bump in the road. The
seats are barely 1 inch off the floor, and only about 10 inches above the
road. The driving position is nearly identical to the 1600 Fairlady, and feels
close to perfect to me. In front of you sits a beautifully designed
dashboard, similar in design to that of a Ferrari 246GT Dino, with an eye shaped instrument
cluster. Instruments include a 120mph speedo, a 7000rpm tacho
with oil and amp warning lights, a temp guage, a fuel guage and a clock.
Sitting on the transmission tunnel is a centre console that stretches
up under the dash. It houses a then state of the art push button AM radio
with 1 speaker, toggle switches for the lights, wipers and map light,
knobs for the choke, the manual washer pump and the cigar lighter. In front
of that is the gear lever and in front of that, an ash tray. Under the central
arm rest is a handy storage box. Under the dash are the heater and vent
slide controls, the ignition switch and dash light dimmer rheostat. The
dashboards of all Silvias look identical but some are made of sheet metal and
some are fibreglass. Mounted on the ceiling is a (really cool) eye-ball
map light that can be swivelled around to shine a concentrated beam of light
to every corner of the cabin. In your hands is a rather large 400mm gorgeous
looking wood rimmed steering wheel, slightly off-set towards the centre
of the car. Behind you is a padded parcel shelf. At the rear of the car is a surprisingly big
boot, fully upholdstered and carpeted. Recessed into the boot lid is the locking
flap for the fuel cap. The fuel filler is easily the worst feature of the car.
You can't put fuel into a Silvia faster than about 5 litres per minute. If you
try to go faster it will suddenly, and without warning, fire a great gush of
petrol back at you, covering you and the back of the car with a couple
of litres of fuel. (Though this is handy if you don't like the guy at the petrol
station) .
Silvia - On the Road
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Driving the Silvia. The Silvia and the Fairlady
1600 share nearly all their mechanical components and basically the same chassis,
so you'd expect them to feel pretty well the same, but they don't. The
Silvia is silghtly faster, even though it's 58kg heavier then the Fairlady, thanks
to it's rather low ratio diff. (it could be ordered with the optional 3.889:1 diff)
The down side of this is a lower top speed of 165kph compared to the Fairlady's
170kph. The Silvia doesn't handle quite as good, due
to the slightly softer springs and the extra 58 kilos it carries. Most of that extra
weight is carried high in the car (it has a roof and extra glass) which raises
it's centre of gravity. It still handles better than most cars. Where the Silvia
is noticeably better is it's ride quality. It doesn't have the Fairlady's
harshness and it offers a very comfortable ride. It handles dirt roads much better
and is enormous fun when driven hard on dirt roads. She cruises comfortably at speeds up to 140kph,
above that the engine noise becomes a little intrusive, and it starts to drum
a bit in the cabin. It's quite aerodynamic for a 30+ year old car, and you don't
get the wind noise you often get with older pre-wind tunnel cars. The brakes
are quite good too. I've had a few emergency stops from high speeds and
each time she's stopped dead straight and very quick. Repeated stops will
show up a little fade but nothing too serious. If the brakes don't feel too
good the problem is more than likely the disc rotors. For some reason these
will warp slightly,especially if the car hasn't been used for a few years. Get them
machined before you go rebuilding the (really expensive to rebuild) callipers. But most importantly, the main reason you buy
a car like this is because of it's looks, and the Silvia looks just spectacular.
Beautiful from every angle, especially in the front 3/4 view, she was perfectly
balanced with her long angular bonnet and short tail. the overall subtlety
of it's look hid the amazingly complex folds in it's panel work. Sports
Car World magazine described her as "bold, distinctive and incredibly
attractive" and "The pretiest Oriantal so far" and "an indication of Japan's
sports car building potential" and "Pretty, pert and petite. Yes, the Japanese
CAN match the Continent's best-- AND look original". When compared to other
cars from 1964 it was an incrediblyadvanced
design. .
Silvia the Movie Star
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Silvia The Movie Star ! Yes, Silvia was
the star of the film "The Karate Kid Part 2". Well, to say "star" might be a slight
exageration, she was in it for about 20 seconds. It was the car the "baddies"
were driving. The truely amazing thing is that three (3) rather big bad dudes
supposedly got out of the car. That would have been a tight squeeze. I haven't
seen a Silvia in any other movies or television shows, if you know of any
others please let me know. (Old Japanese monster films like "Godzilla"
and "Mothra" are usually worth watching just to see the old Japanese cars
in the background)
Silvia - After Production Ended
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In 1974, 7 years after the last Silvia CSP311
rolled off the production line, Nissan resurected the Silvia name with the introduction
of the Silvia S10. Often refered to by Nissan as the "New Silvia", it's
production figures stand in stark contrast to the original model, with 145438
of them built between 1974 and 1979. The Silvia name continues on right
up to today. The 200SX and Gazelle range are sold in Japan as the Nissan
Silvia. Unfortunately they aren't a patch on the original model's stunning design,
since 1979 they have been another example of conformist new car bland.
Only the latest Silvia, released in Japan in 1999, comes close to being
as desirable as the original Silvia. The Silvia is a unique and beautiful car, and
with only 554 ever built, it's so rare it makes a Lamborghini Countach look common.
It represents an almost forgotten chapter in Japan's motoring history,
but thanks to the efforts of her enthusiastic owners, many of those
554 are still in existence and each year a few more previously deceased Silvias
are being returned to their former glory and are gracing the roads once
again. Many of these can be seen of the Internet
Nissan Silvia Register page. .
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