This Pristine 1991 Nissan 180SX Is Owned by the World’s Coolest 87-Year-Old Granny
Definitely not the backward baseball cap-wearing vaper you expected, huh?
Close your eyes and picture an S13 owner—what's he or she wearing? Nothing special, baseball cap on backward, baggy pants, vaping. They say something ordinary like "Yo, that's shizzle." Okay, now slowly open your eyes again. Did you picture an elderly white woman? No? Well, shame on you.
Modified sitcom references aside, the red 1991 Nissan 180SX you see here is actually owned by 87-year-old June Bouwer and it's probably one of the cleanest, most well-maintained S13's in the world. Residing in the small town of Knysna, South Africa, Bouwer told Prestige Multimedia that the car has been meticulously serviced and garage-kept since her husband bought it for her new when she was 59. Over 78,000 miles later, not a tinge of rust can be found on this Nissan sports coupe—remarkable, not just for an old S13 but for '90s Japanese cars in general.
What's more, Bouwer, reverting to type, sounds like she has "granny driven" the car its whole life, telling Prestige Multimedia, "I got it up to 160 km/h [99 mph] once, but that was plenty for me."
As for how she came to own the manual-transmission 180SX, Bouwer tells the story of how her husband offered a car of her choice as a "bribe" to agree to move away from busy-and-bustling Johannesburg. Instead of a big, cushy European sedan, Bouwer opted for the much rarer Nissan, rebadged and sold in South Africa as the 200SX.
For those unfamiliar, the Nissan 180SX is a lightweight, rear-wheel-drive sports car that's become a bit of a drifting icon. Clean, unmodified, and, er, mature-owner examples like this are unicorn-level rare and would undoubtedly fetch a nice sum on Bring a Trailer. Unsurprisingly then, the car has apparently caught the attention of many JDM car collectors and enthusiasts over the years, but to their disappointment, this pristine Nissan isn't for sale.
