I’ve been collecting a nice little stash of Datsun B210 shots for a future CC: two hatchbacks, a couple of two-door sedans. There’s about half a dozen still plying the streets here, if you can believe it. But I’d almost forgotten that they even sold the four door sedan here; it was never a common sight even when new.
And there we are walking around the corner to the library, when this four door comes along, and I’m thinking: Wow; never seen that before, and he’s going to park in that one open spot by the front door. We hurry along, come around the corner just to see the passenger get out and the driver pull off. I ask her, is he parking nearby? “No; he’s coming back for me later”. And they’ve owned it since it was new, no less. Who drives a B210 for thirty-five years? I guess I’ll never know.
No; I’m bound to run into them again; eventually.
I like the way it is dwarfed by a 2000 Honda Civic CX. The Civic grew in 2001, grew again in 2006, and is growing once again for 2012. Meanwhile, the current Sentra still has a few inches of pudge and a few hundred pounds on the Civic. Even the Versa would be a barge compared to the B210, but the B210 was the US market name of the Sunny, and the current Sunny is sold here as the Sentra.
Completely subjective of course, but it seemed to me the Datsun’s of the ’70’s were superior to the Toyota’s of the era though conventional wisdom says Toyota wrote the book on Japanese quality.
We had one of each in the family at the time and the Datsun felt better constructed the engine was smoother and it was more fun to drive than the Toyota. The Datsun outlived the Toyota and seemingly would have run forever.
Toyota seemed to pull away with the 1980 re-design of the Corolla, that dove tailed with the second energy crisis and the out of step offerings of the Big 3 of late malaise.
I’ve owned a 1974 Corolla, and a 1975 B210, both of them purchased brand new. I’d say the Corolla was the better-built vehicle, with better quality materials and and a more solid feel. The B210 was probably more fun to drive. I’d love to have that apple-green B210 in the picture.
The Datsun A-series is a heck of an engine. Very smooth running and very rugged.
We called that a 120y and here it didnt get the guardrail bumpers. Datsun really perfected the little Austin A series engines by the time of this car and hundreds of them live to fight every saturday night in NZ at the speedway as Ministocks teaching kids how to race. Almost never see a road going version very rare rust ate em up.
I sold the B210 new in 1974 when I was working for Datsun. It was basically the same car as the 1200 sedan with a revamped body. The engine was indestructable but had absolutely no power with the automatic. Pair it with a/c and it would not move.
It’s not hard to believe there’s still some running around. From 1983 until 1989 I worked in a Genuine Parts store next to a repair shop. A guy I knew blew a radiator hose on one of these halfway between New Orleans and Laplace on I-10, and drove it on home–about a twelve-to-fifteen mile run with no water. It ended up at the shop next door. Old Doug pulled off the head, scraped off the head gasket and the carbonized oil residue, slapped on a new head gasket, and refilled it with oil and coolant. It ran like nothing had ever happened.
I think that in the early days, Toyota and Datsun were neck and neck in reliability, but Toyota began pulling away by sweating the details. I can well remember Datsun Z’s coming into Daddy’s shop with windows that wouldn’t roll all the way up, door latches that wouldn’t work, and door locks sealed for life. Toyotas, on the other hand, would just rust–but in South Louisiana in those days, everybody accepted that.