Nissan Diesel New Zealand had a large assemply plant in Wiri. With the change in tariffs and removal of import controls the assembly of trucks by the mid-90s became uneconomic. Nissan had little experience of selling buses in New Zealand. Nine Nomads had been sold over 7 years from 1968 and 17 Nissan Scorpion RX102 buses, mainly to Dunedin City Council in the 1970s. Only 3 of these 26 buses were sold outside of Dunedin where loacl agent H E melhop Ltd did much to establish Nissan's reputation for commercial vehicles.
In 1993 a range of New Zealand built buses was announced. Many models were proposed but only the 4x2 rear engined Scorpion was built in numbers, principally for Yellow Bus Company. One went ot Turley Murphy and five to Airbus. Four 6x2 rear engined Intrepids were sold to Whenuapai Bus Travel. Hudson-Owen acquired a rear engined 6x2 Road Warrior coach.
Following the sale of Yellow Bus Company to Stagecoach no further orders were received by Nissan Diesel New Zealand. When production ceased in 1998 the remaining chassis, an Intrepid, an two rear-engined 4x2 Terrier chassis were sold to Hanham's Buses Ltd.
Much more information on the NDNZ buses can be found in Sean Millar "Moa to Olymbus"
Last updated 5 January 2005