This Nissan concept would’ve been the lifestyle SUV daddy

Well, this is the versatile 1987 Nissan Judo concept, which took a chop to the motor show-going public’s hearts in Tokyo of that same year. Apparently no one told Nissan that judo means ‘the way of gentleness’, because this car is a beast. 

Nissan described its Judo at the time as an ‘all-terrain vehicle with cargo space’, which makes it sound more like a lunar lander than a lifestyle-in-a-box. Nowadays we would recognise it as a proto-SUV, but back in the Eighties it might as well have been a lunar rover. Not a Rover, of course, because that outfit was still going back then. 

Come on, Scrooge – there’s so much going on with the Judo, what’s not to like? It’s an SUV-meets-pickup-meets-roadster-coupe. The delightful telephone dial wheels, those front lights, which combine a smidge of Alpine A110 with a touch of Ford RS200, with a hint of aliens from Toy Story. In fact, this is probably where Pixar got the inspiration. ‘Oooooooh.’

Our favourite bit on the whole car has to be the slightly wacky retracting hardtop, which doesn’t stow away to open up the cabin to the elements, but rather slides back along the rear of the car. This is the vehicle the Skoda Felicia Fun dreamed of being. Another exciting feature was the boot, with its side-opening hatches. Frankly we’ve never seen the like. The spare wheel hinged out of the rear bumper and there’s even a winch concealed in there too.

The Judo’s interior is a miasma of grey plastic, much like everything else from the late Eighties and early Nineties. The infotainment and ventilation controls are arranged in a square slab of buttons right in the middle of the centre stack, but otherwise it’s all very minimalist. One-piece seats trimmed in corduroy are a particular joy, and the cabin would have been a fun place to be with the roof rolled back and the sun on your bald spot. There’s nominally room for four inside, but take our word for it that the cramped area behind the front seats looks like it’s been trimmed in a baby changing mat.

The Judo got a 2.0-litre turbocharged inline four-cylinder unit from the Nissans Cedric and Gloria, which sound like an Eighties ballroom championship-winning couple. It produced a heady 207bhp and 195lb ft of torque, along with a five-speed manual gearbox and four-wheel drive. This wasn’t merely an SUV for posing, it had the chops to back it all up. 

Who really knows – what a massive open goal that Nissan left right there, for anyone to swoop in and take advantage of. Of course, the fact that no one really did take advantage to quite the riotous degree that the Judo would have managed does rather suggest there wasn’t quite the audience for the car. Perhaps it was all a big joke that went a bit too far. 

If Nissan’s Judo concept was being sold on a well known shopping site it would have a box underneath saying ‘People who looked at this concept went on to buy: the Suzuki X-90, the Toyota RAV4 and the 3dr Land Rover Freelander’. But none of those bad lads would be along until 1994 at the earliest. The Judo could have been the SUV everyone would have got behind, but ultimately it ended up being the back catalogue equivalent of the Juke’s weird uncle that no one wants round at Christmas.