I’ve always liked the seeming irrationality of a rear-engined station wagon. Despite the layout seeming to initally make no sense, the truth is that clever packaging tricks have given the world a number of viable rear-engine wagons, from the Volkswagen Squareback to the Fiat 500 Giardiniera to the Chevy Corvair Lakewood to a surprising number more. One of my favorites and one of the least-known of these is NSU’s only station wagon ever, and it was made in, of all places, Uruguay.
Yes, Uruguay! Uruguay actually made a surprising number of interesting (if usually low-volume) cars, ones specifically designed to meet the particular needs of their population, and the NSU Uruguay (as it was creatively called by NSU, once they learned about it) was no exception.
It started off in 1968 as a custom-designed and built body that used the two-cylinder NSU Prinz mechanicals. The Prinz was a small two-door sedan, and this wagon took that little 600cc engine and stuck it in the body significantly larger two-door station wagon. It seems these first versions were more conventionally front-engined?
Quintanar, the local NSU importer along with local coachbuilder Nordex, built these initial cars, and sold 140 of them. They decided that a larger, more powerful engine would be great, so they reached out to the NSU mothership in Germany, even sending them a car so that they could see if a larger engine could be fitted.
NSU did manage to fit their 1000cc four-cylinder engine in there – but at the rear, which is where all NSU engines at the time resided. This did reduce rear cargo space by raising the load floor a good bit, but it did free the under-hood area up front, which became a pretty sizable trunk.
The larger 1000cc engine made 43 horsepower – pretty good for the time and place, and in the end about 500 of these very rectilinear wagons were sold. Some even seem to still be trundling around Uruguay to this day, a testimony to the longevity of a good, honest design.
The cargo floor in the rear is about at the level of that upper body crease/character line, right about the lower edge of the tailgate. It’s not deep, but some pictures have made it seem like there is a deep well just behind the rear seat too, so I suspect these actually are pretty good at swallowing cargo.
The taillights look like little plastic Jell-O cups and were used on other NSUs of the era. Speaking of, the engine in the Uruguay came from this NSU 1000, so you can get a sense of just how un-NSU these things seemed:
So, yeah, very different design languages there.
It seems Audi’s heritage museum has one of these, which I think is great; it’s the gray one in these pictures, and you can see the interior above. It’s a tidy and clever little car (hey, it seems to have heater controls between the seats like an air-cooled VW) and it’s a good reminder of all the interesting things that were happening in South America that don’t usually get the same attention as Europe, North America, or Asia.
I wonder if anyone has tried to bring one of these to the US? I wonder how much they go for down there? I wonder if I’m leading myself down a dangerous path?
“The cargo floor in the rear is about at the level of that upper body crease/character line, right about the lower edge of the tailgate. It’s not deep.”
So about the same as any modern 2-tonne SUV with a folding 3rd row, 4WD, multi-link suspension and optional subwoofer.
Perfecto para Mamacita.
Looks like that lady is just casually picking up her drug bag from that drug boat
Your short list of rear engined wagons should include the Hillman Husky, based on the Imp. Also AFAIK the Corvair is the only 4 door rear engined wagon.
Good call on the shrunken Husky.
You may be right about 4 door wagons at least production ones.
Sad the 4 door VW Type 4 wagon never got the thumbs up to manufacture, would have been easy though, most pieces were there on the shelf.
I have hazy memories of a Renault R8 estate car variant, but that may have been an English glass fibre specialist fabrication of the 1960’s.
There appears to be photographic evidence of the Renault 8 wagon, though it doesn’t look like a true production model with that rear window…
One of the unsung heroes of global motorcars is the Reliant company, known for the Scimitar and three wheel things, their expertise was global. from Uruguay to Turkey via Israel, Iran and Borneo.
You absolutely need one of these. If David can have an Aztek, I think it’s only fair.
That has a real Brooks Stevens vibe, Wagoner greenhouse for sure.
Low polygon count done right.
That’s the best Uruguayan NSU I’ve seen in my life, much less today!
Funny you should feature an NSU today. Last night I started streaming a show in which an NSU Ro 80 features prominently in the first part of the show. The show is set in the late 70’s in Europe and the IMCDb listing for it is an Autopian wet dream of cool and unusual (at least to N. Americans) cars and trucks of the period.
Ordinarily, I would avoid using NSU and streaming in the same sentence.
Had to look up NSU to understand. I assume you use NSU in the same sense as UTI?
Yup.
Damn, I saw one of these when in Uruguay once and thought was somekind of half baked brazilian market VW Variant II (Typ 3 evolution, Brasilia based) adaptation.
Everyday we learn something interesting.
Wow, that battered example you linked to appears to be steel bodied. I really assumed it would be fiberglass. Quintanar/Nordex really tooled up for a production run of 500 cars, which, while undoubtedly a relatively expensive purchase at the time, were still far from luxury models
Did you get two of them if you bought them in Paraguay?
You. Out.
Torch please import one of these. I can’t imagine they’re very expensive, though figuring out the logistics might be a challenge as there isn’t an industry around importing Ecuadorian vehicles to the US as far as I know…
In the top shot, if you put your hand over the grill area, you’d swear you were looking at a 2 door Jeep Cherokee Chief from the 1970s!
Doooo iiiiiiiit! Deer will run in terror from this thing.
It looks like a project from the advanced industrial design class at a local community college.
At first glance, I thought this might be a kit you could attach to your tired, rusty Prinz. Or a set of Popular Mechanics plans you could build with a sheet-metal brake and an assortment of hammers and a screwdriver.
Very Eastern European design.
I’d bet there’s some plywood involved in that set of plans.
It looks like a scaled down full size SUV
Hoo baby check out that curve