A Cube with a Bluebird nose: Nissan students go wild at Tokyo Auto Salon

Yes: Nissan has its own ‘technical schools’. They are located in five different locations in Japan and are of course intended to train ‘in-house’ people who can later enjoy a successful career within the safe walls of Nissan. As we see happening in Europe, the students of these schools are occasionally given free rein to create something beautiful. The Tokyo Auto Salon is an excellent opportunity for this. The Auto Salon should not be confused with the Tokyo Motor Show (now Japan Mobility Show) and can be seen as the Japanese equivalent of the Essen Motor Show and SEMA in Las Vegas. So tuning, although in Japan everything is different in that area than in the West.

For the 2024 edition of the Tokyo Auto Salon, which opens on January 13, students from the different schools created three unique cars. The ‘Elgrand Glassier’ is a typical Japanese MPV with a nose that is very recognizable to Europeans. This is an Elgrand – a passenger van from Nissan – with the front of an X-Trail, for an SUV-like appearance. The cool theme is further underlined in the obvious way: the Glassier stands higher on the legs and has rugged wheels and tires, black wheel arch edges and a roof rack with roof tent.

Nissan Elgrand

Nissan X Trail

The merging of the two

At Nissan Aichi Automobile College, thoughts apparently turned collectively back to the 1990s, when the majority of students were probably still in their cradle or had not even reached that point yet. The Nissan icon from that period is of course the Skyline of the R34 generation, which in this case appears as a sedan. The chunky four-door has been widened in a way that we know from the two-door GT-R, with significantly flared wheel arches that in this case also extend into the doors at the rear. A big job, but then you also have a very nice sedan.

We saved the couple’s candy for last. Just like the Elgrand, the Seto comes from Kyoto, where a last-generation Nissan Cube was covered with a lot of retro sauce. The Cube went out of production in 2019 and is therefore by definition not new, but the Bluebird front used here makes it look a lot older than it is. The students did not stick with another grille, but modified the entire front and the front screens. For example, a striking design can be found above the front wheel arches, while the chromed bumper beam fits perfectly into this nostalgic picture. We are in love, and are especially disappointed that no more images of the Nissan Cube Seto are available yet.

Modifying such a body is a lot of work: students were busy for 6 months with the Cube conversion.