√Never mind the quality, feel the turbo | Drive Flashback

While the wedgy Nissan EXA might have sported an explosion of ‘Turbo’ badges, its performance was anything but explosive.

Story by Tony Davis originally published in Drive in 1996.

Renault’s F1 exploits made turbocharging the automotive craze of the 1980s. Nissan was first to fully capitalise on this market, introducing a Pulsar-based coupe called EXA Turbo during 1983.

The level of interest was extraordinary. In a world recovering from an energy crisis and still thumbing its nose at V8s, turbocharging seemed a magical solution: startling performance if you wanted it, but winning economy if you drove gently.

The reality was a little different, but the public’s romance with all things forcibly inducted was to last several years and drag in most major manufacturers.

Confused at the time as to whether it was called Nissan or Datsun, the company gave the EXA a plethora of badges which covered either outcome.

However, all were outshone by the large and bright ‘Turbo’ stickers which dominated the EXA’s bodywork and trim (‘turbo’ was even woven into the seat fabric).

The EXA’s generous allocation of problems started on the outside; the bloke who designed the front never talked to the man who did the rear, and the structural engineer was trapped in the lift.

Never mind the looks or quality, Nissan Australia stressed, feel the turbo.

The EXA introduced a novel feature: automatic lane-changing. This was effected by pushing the accelerator. Nothing much happened until the rev-counter reached 3000 rpm, then suddenly the front end lit up and the steering wheel performed a waltz no matter how hard you held it.

You could also play the Lane Guessing Game under braking; alternatively, you could throw the little EXA into a corner and take bets on whether you’d experience gross understeer, supreme understeer or terminal understeer.

To cash in on the magic T-word, rental companies put EXAs on fleet. It was a short and expensive experiment. Most customers left in a tyre-spinning screech and returned with a smoking, spluttering mass of metal. And they often committed the cardinal sin: turning off the engine immediately after a drag race, thereby causing a turbo meltdown.

The EXA’s price was just under $12,000, considered good value even in an era when some people paid full retail price for products with Nissan badges. Indeed the next cheapest turbo was the $24,000 Mitsubishi Starion.

The EXA boasted a relatively modest 77kW and 157Nm. And the performance figures, thought to forgive all other sins, were also pretty ordinary by today’s standards. Try 0-100km/h in 10.0 seconds and a standing 400 metres in 16.8 seconds.

The base model Commodore or Falcon bettered that, and with a lot less drama!

Do you, or did you, ever own an original Nissan EXA Turbo? Let us know in the comments below.