Gianni LaTerra 1984 NISSAN PULSAR ET TURBO

AUSSIE-DEVELOPED AND A TREND-SETTER. THAT'S THE STORY OF GIANNI'S NOW QUITE RARE NISSAN

- MARK HIGGINS

A round the time Datsun badges were being binned for shiny new Nissan ones, the N12 Pulsar popped up on our roads in October 1982.

Angular in design, it was a reliable, fuss-free, five door, front-wheel drive hatchback, like many others in the market and nothing to get the blood pumping.

Initially imported, Nissan Pulsars were offered with a 1.3-litre or 1.5-litre engine with adequate performance and a choice of a manual or auto transmission. Come May 1983 local production had commenced at Nissan's Clayton (Vic) plant and to celebrate, some upgrades were in order.

There were new, more-supportive seats, minor trim changes and to make it more suitable for our roads, the steering and suspension was fettled. Later in the year a sedan variant saw the light of day.

Nobody could accuse the Pulsar of being exciting.

But that changed in April 1984, when then Nissan Product Planning boss, the late Howard Marsden, hatched a plan to grab the best traits of the well-regarded, pocket-rocket Nissan EXA coupe, including its four-cylinder, electronic fuel-injected, turbo engine and five-speed manual gearbox and shove them into a five door hatchback.

And so the Nissan ET Turbo was born: our very first Aussie-built, turbo hatchback, completely developed in our own backyard and the benchmark small performance car in its price class. It cost $12,500 and its name is derived from the engine code. As the engine was imported fully built from Japan, it limited the number of ETs that could be built without contravening local content laws.

Heat and turbos, like oil and water, are not good bedfellows.

To combat the excessive heat from the Nissan/Garret T02 turbo, engineers fitted a heat exchanger, reducing oil temperature and added an electric radiator fan with direct cooling to the turbo and exhaust manifold.