In Germany, the Pulsar N13 is known as the Nissan Sunny: for the European market, Nissan decided to market the B12 sports coupe and the N13 both under the Sunny name, and both were quite successful on the European market. While the precessor, the B11 Sunny, didn’t match the European taste and looked rather dull, the next Pulsar Sunny generation in 1989 sold in respectable numbers. The Sunny N13 was well positioned in the group of extremely successful hatchbacks of the 1980s, such as the VW Golf II GTI or Peugeot 205, or Citroën AX.
The N13 hatchbacks sold in large quantities so that 25 years after launch, seeing a beater N13 being discarded on a junkyard was a very common sight, so I usually didn’t bother to unlocking my Sony K800i phone to snap a picture. At most, as the engines are identical to the B12 sister models, I would snatch a few engine parts before moving on. However, for this snow-covered Sunny that I found in Reilingen in December 2010, I made an exception.
The reason was that this N13 featured a rare, Germany-made body kit, made by Pfeba Kunststofftechnik GmbH in Wendlingen. Like its Austrian competitor Foha, Pfeba seems to have been doing quite well in the 80ies and 90ies, making body kits and spoilers (mostly for BMW). Most of the companies that made amazing looking body kits back then seems to have gone bankrupt in the early 2000s.
The kit seems to be that rare that the first hit I found when googling for it was myself posting these pictures in a Nissan forum in 2010. For a BMW, the aftermarket kits are probably well documented by the community, but for a N13 Sunny? Less likely.
Besides the special body kit and 80ies decals, this Sunny features the standard GA16i central point injection, 1.6L 12-valve single cam engine. Before the GA-series engines were upgraded to twin cam cylinder heads in the early 90ies, lower-spec engines were available with a single cam cylinder head. Quite economical and, pushing out 90 horsepower, surprisingly fun to drive. The hydraulic lifters and timing chain made these engines almost indestructible, even with completely neglected maintenance.
The ODO of this Sunny only showed slightly above 80,000km, which, judging by the little wear on the interior and excellent exterior paint condition, was likely correct. Nevertheless, back in 2010, even in excellent condition, these N13 sold for a few hundred Euros at most.
