Nissan Stagea: Poor Man's Audi Avant?

GaryC

GaryC

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I've been looking at wagons on my local online car classifieds and chanced upon the Nissan Stagea. I'm not knowledgeable at all about this, but it seems to me that it's a poor man's Audi Avant. Seems to have a good motor, decent space and good boot. Why wasn't this more popular?
 
I'd rather see it as the Nissan Skyline Loadrunner.
 
GaryC said:
Why wasn't this more popular?
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It was a Japanese-only model for starters.

Japan as usual keeping cool interesting cars for themselves or mucking them up when they export them, isn't that right Second-gen Scion xB?
 
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public said:
I'd rather see it as the Nissan Skyline Loadrunner.
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Yep, that's just what an Stagea is, an Sportscar in a boxy dress.



The real poor man's Audi Avant is just a Passat Variant (Or an Vectra Caravan, depends on how you see it)
 
Later models are complete V70 clones. I saw one the other day that had a sticker on the back window saying 'it's not a Volvo' :lol:

But I too find them intriguing, pretty good value for what you get. I'd consider one if I was after a big second hand wagon.
 
Hbriz said:
Later models are complete V70 clones. I saw one the other day that had a sticker on the back window saying 'it's not a Volvo' :lol:

But I too find them intriguing, pretty good value for what you get. I'd consider one if I was after a big second hand wagon.
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800px-2004-2007_NISSAN_STAGEA_250RX_FOUR_rear.jpg


:lol:
 
The older models look quite decent, even though they look like coffin-mobiles. It seems to have a decent engine, though.
 
Holy shit! I've always known of the Stagea, but I never thought it looked like a V70...until now!
 
From my point of view, the Nissan Stagea is a V70 R for someone that wants to make it difficult for themselves. Parts are difficult to come by, which isn't a problem on your weekend toy but a real problem if it's your family wagon that's out of commission while you're waiting for parts from eBay. You also sit on the wrong side of the car. On the plus side you won't see another one on the supermarket car park, if you're in to that sort of thing.

Nissan Stagea - Because owning a V70 is too easy?.
 
If you're into JDM and you have kids, you won't even considering a V70 R - that's the thing.

You can compare both, but most people who by a Stagea won't.
 
Mitchi said:
If you're into JDM and you have kids, you won't even considering a V70 R - that's the thing.

You can compare both, but most people who by a Stagea won't.
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If you are into JDM you probably don't have kids.
 
I'd go for the earlier, RB powered versions. Don't like the newer shape.

Almost bought one of these a couple of years ago as well...

1997-Nissan-Stagea-Autech-260RS_01.jpg
 
Perc said:
From my point of view, the Nissan Stagea is a V70 R for someone that wants to make it difficult for themselves. Parts are difficult to come by, which isn't a problem on your weekend toy but a real problem if it's your family wagon that's out of commission while you're waiting for parts from eBay. You also sit on the wrong side of the car. On the plus side you won't see another one on the supermarket car park, if you're in to that sort of thing.

Nissan Stagea - Because owning a V70 is too easy?.
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In Australia and NZ, parts are a lot cheaper, You'll be sitting on the right side and you may see another one in the supermarket. :p
 
It's too bad wagon's are losing their market share these days. I really love them. Other than the Liberty, V70 and the Stagea, are there any other good wagons?
 
I think wagons sales are past their lowest point. That came a few years ago. They're starting to pick up again I'd say.

VE Sportwagon is pretty good if you want to release your inner bogan. Passats are good if a bit boring, R36 makes up for that but is pretty expensive. Second hand BMW 3/5er Tourings are great cars and reasonably affordable, E39s are cheap nowadays. I'm a fan of the Octavia vRS, one of the best all rounder cars you can buy these days I reckon. If JDM is your thing you can get Toyota Caldinas pretty cheap, I know nothing about them but the turbo ones look like they could be pretty fun.
 
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I always think the Caldina GT-Four as a Celica GT-Four Estate. Similar drivetrain, same engine but slightly more poweeer.
 
GaryC said:
It's too bad wagon's are losing their market share these days. I really love them. Other than the Liberty, V70 and the Stagea, are there any other good wagons?
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Mitsubishi Legnum VR4. twin turbo V6, AWD. Another Japanese import.
 
"Any good wagons?" and "wagons losing their market share"? Well not in germany :D.

On the "any good wagons" I'd instantly name all the german brands, BMW, Merc, VAG with all brands. Also the mentioned Lolvos.

On the numbers, the 2011 Germany figures:

Over 20% of all new cars in germany are wagons, only topped by sweden with nearly 35%. In total numbers germany is by far the biggest wagon-market on the globe. And if you go into details, it gets even "better". In the class of Passat / 3-series / etc a total of 72% of all cars were wagons, one class above that (A6 / 5er) its still 45% and a class below (Golf-size, where not even all models even have wagons) its 36%. Only the sub-Golf segment falls short with only 9%, but nobody really needs a tiny wagon I guess.
 
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