Kirk28's 1989 Nissan President Sovereign VIP V8E

[kirk28]

Ok so after unsuccessfully looking for a mint President with the round headlights, too hit and miss to import one as the early Presidents are seriously bad for rust, so I gave in and bought this 89 which is black on black on black  from a guy I had met through my UZS131 ownership about 17 years ago (he still has his mint 131 Crown btw).

 

 

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/VqvFevy.jpg[/img]

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was sold on the mint black interior, and the $20k plus of receipts he had from the last 6 years he owned it. I knew he was particular with his cars but the receipts on this thing are unreal, he completely over serviced the car and has every receipt for that too.

 

New injectors (they nearly always fail on these)

New heater core

Air conditioning repaired and converted to R-134a

Rebuilt transmission and diff

New vinyl roof

New factory sky high factory suspension with whitewalls as high as the great wall of china.

 

Everything in the car works, and I mean everything, all 3 cigarette lights unused

136,000km which seems legit.

 

Actually this is the second President i've owned, the other was 10ish years ago, a 87 Sovereign with a very rare full bench in the front - that car is currently being worked on by the new owner and is getting a VH 4.5 V8..should be interesting.

[kirk28]

So I arranged to fly in for Xmas from Oz  to Wellington to pick the car up and add it to the garage fleet that probably will continue to get bigger. Jumped in and drove it back to New Plymouth; blast from the past, these things are very similar to driving a mid 60's yank tank and really aren't the cars to throw around corners, the ancient road holding and the sky high stance means you should only wind it up on long straights...but fuck they are so enjoyable to cruise in..connect iphone to stereo; set the dual air conditioning;open the 4 electric quarterlight windows; dial in  the cruise control and sink into the leather barcalounger type seats.

 

As expected it chewed through a tank pretty quickly but the car hadn't been run for a while and changing to 95 from 91 has improved the fuel consumption heaps; but a car that is essentially 45 years old in design, weighs 2200kg; has the aerodynamics of the empire state building, and runs a 3 speed slush box is never going to get decent mileage, infact the Prez makes my 91 Century feel a bit like a drivers car..and that's saying something.

 

 

took the boot carpet out to clean it, the boot or more correctly the "trunk" on these are massive

 

[kirk28]

So the one draw back was the paint, the seller told me it was oxidised and he had never done anything with it as he was concerned cutting it would be too risky on the old original paint. These old Japillacs have single stage paint so I knew it could be done carefully, and I prefer stuffed paint over rust which is the usual case with these cars, this one's the best i've seen in that regard and has zero rust

 

So the car looks really good from a few metres back but get closer to it and it becomes pretty obvious it's oxidised to all shit, the car actually looked more grey than black...So I contacted a guy in Albany who I knew was the master of paint correction and drove the old bitch up to Auckland to get some attention while I caught up with some mates. The work took  2 days of cutting it carefully back and applying an oil based coat that should last a few years, but let the pictures do the talking, pretty amazing transformation..

 

 

Was where a TV aerial was attached, had some protective clear adhesive that had after 27 years become one with the paint.

[kirk28]

Bonnet looking right fucked

 

 

 

 

[kirk28]

Some nice original black hidden below layers of krud

 

 

same for the boot

 

[kirk28]

 

[kirk28]

 

 

 

 

 

[kirk28]

So left on the to do list is to get a dent fixed on the rear bumper; and if I can find one change the front to the round head light model, i'm pretty sure it's just a case of changing the nose cone, the guards etc are the same.

 

After picking the car up from the Gloss master on the way home to Taranaki I stopped in at spec 2 development in East Tamaki to check out an 82 President sitting outside, its a terminal cancer patient and it has the round headlights; went and inquired about it but got the standard "it's a clients and it's not for sale he's owned it for years and is planning to do something with it" it looks like time is going to beat him to it as this thing is only just holding together by paint.

 

Ok so if anyone knows of a wrecking President (73 - 82) let me know, i'm also after the stainless hubcaps that look a 1000 times better than the later model plastic jobs.

 

 

So in the week i've picked it up i've put on more than 2500 summery jap-luxo-barge wafting kilometers

[kirk28]

discussion here

 

//oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/54980-kirk28s-1989-nissan-president-sovereign-vip-v8e/

[kirk28]

Put the rear chrome trim back on today, like big asses? 

 

You can also see the dent in the rear bumper above the top left of the number plate cut out and the bar will need to be straightened. There is a mint bar on Yahoo JPN for about $100 but the guys I use reckon the cost something over from Japan to here of  anything longer than 1.5m will be around $1000 min as it has to go on a plane...bummer because there are two bumpers that are from a slightly earlier shape that has no rubber inserts which would look way better especially If I was able to get a front nose cone with the round head light set up.