{"id":34869,"date":"2022-10-30T09:04:05","date_gmt":"2022-10-30T13:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=34869"},"modified":"2022-10-30T09:04:05","modified_gmt":"2022-10-30T13:04:05","slug":"1137671_vintage-nissan-sunny-electric-pickup-hauls-with-leaf-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=34869","title":{"rendered":"Vintage Nissan Sunny electric pickup hauls with Leaf power"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nissan doesn’t make an electric pickup truck, but a South Carolina tuner may have just created the next best thing\u2014for Nissan itself to show.<\/p>\n

Tommy Pike Customs (TPC) took a 1987 Nissan Sunny Truck and gave it a Nissan Leaf powertrain transplant. The completed truck will be displayed at Nissan’s booth at the 2022 SEMA show, the annual automotive aftermarket trade show in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

The powertrain conversion includes a 40-kwh battery pack and an electric motor producing 147 hp and 236 lb-ft of torque. That gives it about twice the horsepower and more than three times the torque of the gasoline inline-4 engine the Sunny left the factory with, Nissan noted in a press release.<\/p>\n

\"1987<\/p>\n

1987 Nissan Sunny Truck with Leaf powertrain<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The motor is connected to the stock manual transmission. That’s a common carryover in EV conversions, for simplicity’s sake\u2014and the driver will likely never need to shift or think about the left pedal.<\/p>\n

The Sunny Truck was never sold in the United States, although related passenger-car body styles were sold here with Datsun 1200 badging. This truck, which retains stock right-hand drive, qualified for importation because it’s comfortably past the 25-year limit that exempts vintage cars from most U.S. regulations.<\/p>\n

In addition to the electric conversion, the rest of the truck was made over with plenty of references to Nissan’s heritage. It wears a body kit inspired by the “Hakosuka” Nissan Skyline GT-R of the 1960s, with a livery based on the one used by Brock Racing Enterprises on its Datsun 240Z and Datsun 510 race cars.<\/p>\n

\"1987<\/p>\n

1987 Nissan Sunny Truck with Leaf powertrain<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Other modifications include uprated suspension, combining the setup from an S13-generation Nissan 240SX up front with heavy-duty leaf springs in the rear, plus modern 17-inch wheels and tires.<\/p>\n

This isn’t the first Leaf-based pickup. Engineers at Nissan’s Arizona proving ground converted a first-generation Leaf into a first Nissan electric pickup truck<\/a> to haul parts around the facility eight years ago. Combining the front end of a Leaf with the bed of a Nissan Frontier, it wasn’t quite as good-looking as this effort.<\/p>\n

\"Nissan<\/p>\n

Nissan Surf-Out, Max-Out and Hang-Out concepts<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

While just a show vehicle, the electric Sunny Truck hints at some interesting possibilities. Reports that Nissan is considering a compact electric pickup<\/a> have been circulating since last year, when such a vehicle was potentially previewed by the Max-Out concept, one of several concepts teasing Nissan’s goal of 15 EVs by 2030<\/a>, globally. Meanwhile, a potential electric-truck-focused partnership between Nissan and Detroit EV startup Hercules<\/a> never appeared to go anywhere.<\/p>\n

Any Nissan electric truck would be likely built in the U.S. At present, Nissan and its Infiniti luxury division plan U.S.-built EVs<\/a> at Canton, Mississippi, starting in 2025. To date, Nissan has assembled U.S.-market Leaf hatchbacks in Tennessee; the Mississippi factory currently builds the gasoline Frontier and Titan pickups, as well as the Altima sedan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nissan doesn’t make an electric pickup truck, but a South Carolina tuner may have just created the next best thing\u2014for Nissan itself to show. Tommy Pike Customs (TPC) took a 1987 Nissan Sunny Truck and gave it a Nissan Leaf powertrain transplant. The completed truck will be displayed at Nissan’s booth at the 2022 SEMA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34870,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-cars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}