page_title: Nissan Silvia
section_title: S110
hierarchical_section_title: Nissan Silvia / S110
caption_attribution_description: It is My Car which it photographed in Osaka.
context_page_description: The Nissan Silvia is the name given to the company's long-running line of sport coupes based on the Nissan S platform. Although recent models have shared this chassis with other vehicles produced by Nissan, the name Silvia is interchangeable with the chassis codes. The Nissan Silvia's main competitors worldwide were the Honda Prelude, Mazda MX-6, Toyota Celica, Mitsubishi Eclipse, Isuzu Impulse, Subaru Impreza and Honda Integra.
  The "Silvia" name is a variation of the word "sylvia", which is a scientific genus term assigned to a class of birds, possibly a reference to the Bluebird which was in production at the time the Silvia was introduced.
context_section_description: This iteration of the Silvia (sold in United States and Canada as the Datsun 200SX and in Mexico as the Datsun Sakura, Japanese for cherry blossom), available as a 2-door hardtop coupe and a new bodystyle 3-door hatchback. The Japanese market version of the hatchback was called the Gazelle and was exclusive to Nissan Bluebird Store locations sold alongside the Fairlady Z, while the coupe bodystyle Silvia remained exclusive to Nissan Prince Store locations alongside the Skyline. Its sharp-edged styling was shared with the new Nissan Leopard sedan and coupé, also exclusive to Nissan Bluebird Store.
  This generation Silvia was uniquely progressive in that it was originally intended to feature a rotary engine, designed and built by Nissan. The resulting unit was fairly unreliable, and forestalled production. Coincidentally, this Silvia shares its chassis code with the Mazda Cosmo, the first Japanese production car to feature a rotary engine. The chassis was shared with the B310 Nissan Sunny and the larger A10 Nissan Violet platform.
  The car was redesigned shortly before it was released and the stillborn Wankel power plant was replaced by a line of twin-plug conventional piston engines from the new Z-series range. These included the Z20 and the turbocharged and later the fuel-injected Z18ET, although the latter of the two was only available to the Japanese domestic market and after the mid-life facelift. This took place in late May 1981 and included new bumpers and a reworked front design. Albeit a sporting design, the 135 PS (99 kW) Turbo model received largely the same chassis as regular models and did not have any kind of turbocharger boost indicator. At the time of the facelift, the DOHC FJ20-engined RS model was also introduced.
caption: Rear of pre-facelift Silvia 2000 ZSE-X coupé (Japan)
exif: {}