(First Posted September 7, 2013) As odd as it may seem, sometimes I almost rather enjoy dump runs, especially when I’ve been cooped up in my office way more than normal. Of course, that does rather depend on what’s being dumped, and what it took to get the dumpee material in the truck to start with. In this case it was just an old tv, chair and a few boxes; nothing smelly, sticky or runny. And at the recycling area, there was this nice old Datsun 510 wagon; a classic Eugene-mobile.
Now this is not the classic original 510, but the rather pale and tepid neo-510, which Datsun brought back to the US around 1979 in a blatant attempt to cash in on the lingering 510-love still rampant by recycling that name. Well, the real 510 lovers saw it for what it was, and the neo-510 became another minor footnote to Nissan’s period of decline. But they’ve become classics in their own right; as a UJC (Ubiquitous Japanese Car) of that period.
Cool find! I think this picture was made for my mom. She owned an early-’80s Datsun 200SX, and also goes to the dump several times a week (she can’t stand trash and recycling piling up).
Had you told me in 1980 that in 30-some years, I would get excited and nostalgic for a brown Datsun wagon, I would have called you crazy. Yet, here I am. I would take this one home in a New York minute.
This could have a home in my driveway. Big datsun fan. Still have a shrine to the brand in the back pasture. Might haul it off someday when I recover.
I bought one of these as a non-runner project back in the late eighties. Mine was a ’78 model, and was green in color. We drug it home by tow strap with my wife driving the tow car. (That may be an interesting cc article in itself; the strain on martial relationships caused by recruiting your wife to drive the tow vehicle while dragging home your latest non-running cc project.) It turned into one of those cases where the fantasy of finding a non-runner that needed a quick, easy fix was just that; a fantasy. Of course, it was compounded with lack of spare time and money. I never did get it to run, and eventually got tired of looking at it and sold it. Chalk it up to education.
I’ve always been attracted to compact wagons as they seem to be the ideal combination of utility and efficiency. If I had own own only one car, it would be something of this type. However, I am not satisfied with owning one car, so instead I have a variety of less than efficient cars.
“That may be an interesting cc article in itself; the strain on martial relationships caused by recruiting your wife to drive the tow vehicle while dragging home your latest non-running cc project.”
Agreed, and the article should conclude that while it is possible to recruit your life partner for this task, the correct answer is DON’T DO IT! It’s a hard lesson I’ve now taken to heart, strengthening our relationship in many different ways.
a 90s caprice wagon(or roadmaster)will give you same gasmileage(24mpg)with a lot more power&room.
How do you figure? The EPA ratings for a 1981 510 wagon were a combined 29mpg or 26mpg with automatic. The whale Caprice wagon’s best MPG figure using the older EPA ratings were a combined 19mpg with the 4.3l V8 or 18mpg with the LT1.
if I have ever get into a front collation accident I rather to be in a caprice(or roadmaster)than some of these cardboard super thin Japanese garbages.prefer to spend 20 bucks a week more on gas than sitting on wheelchair for rest of my life.
I was involved in a collation accident once and it was very traumatic. I was working on the printing press at Newsday and got my hand caught in a machine that inserted advertising flyers into the paper. Lots of blood loss and shredded skin, I still have a scar from it! Plus, my co-workers were none too happy with me since none of us were allowed to leave until the daily run was completed, and my mishap set back the whole line for well over an hour. I was pretty sure I was gonna get shanked in the parking lot when I returned to work, since I had seen two Jamaican women beat the shit out of each other over a similar incident.
What does something like that have to do with cars, though? I think it would be equally difficult to collate anything while driving either a Datsun or Caprice.
Ahahaha! Funny reply! Sorry about your hand, though.
You might want to change up from 1st gear in the Datsun they were rubbish new yes just another underdeveloped Japanese offering but they were good on gas, Thats really all that sold them, survivors in this country are very few if any, rust ate them real early and the flood of used imports in the 80s meant these just got thrown away when the headgasket blew.
Wonder if this had one of the NAPS-Z engines that Nissan was known for back then?
At this time, I had a 1974 Datsun 710, which I think was the immediate predecessor model of the 1978 510. I thought Nissan’s model names were at best confusing…the original 510 became the 710 and then the 510 again, and around 1973 they came out with the 610 (which I think was only slightly bigger than the 710 but had the straight 6 vs the 1.8 liter 4…the 610 later became the Maxima, where the 510 went from Stanza to Altima. I drove a ’78 510 back in 1978 when I worked for Hertz (I remember it was unusual to see a Datsun in the Hertz rental office back then, we also had a Toyota, but they were not the norm at that time.
My 710 was a family hand me down, 4 door automatic, it was pretty slow, but it got me through 4 years of undergraduate studies (commuter student) in Burlington, Vermont…parked outside, there was only 1 week it wouldn’t start (the blizzard of ’78 in February) and I had to hitch a ride into town with my Father. Other than that, it was pretty reliable (other than leaky coolant hoses and alternator that went south) but despite being Rusty Jones treated, it started rusting….I decided to get rid of it after spinning out on black ice driving up from Massachusetts to Burlington in 1981 (bit some guardrail, ended up cruching the front, got it fixed but decided I needed another car (haven’t owned an automatic since then).
1980 was the year they came out. Z22 was the one that came to the U.S.
However, I think that at first they were limited to trucks and maximas. As usual, I could be wrong. I frequently am.
It really is insanely confusing, especially because they used different names for each market the cars were sold in. A glance at the Wikipedia Nissan Bluebird article shows a lineage something like this:
OG510->610(4cyl)->710->510(A10)->Stanza->Altima
OG510->610(6cyl)->810->Maxima
Can anybody who is more familiar with that era of Datsun confirm?
That seems correct, Sean. 210 and 310 begat the Sentra.over here and the F-10 went 200SX to 240SX etc.
It is very confusing….it seems that the rear-wheel drive (Sunny?) platform and the front wheel drive (Cherry?) platform merged sometime in the early 80’s (maybe some models coexisted…kind of the car equivalent of cro-magnon being on earth at the same time as neanderthals but then existing afterwards as well).. in this case, I think the Nissan 210 and the 310 coexisted as well as the pulsar, but eventually the Sentra took over.
Sean’s chart is pretty useful to show model progression, but can be hard to construct due to the odd naming/marketing names assigned to models.
I think a small correction (it is confusing) is that the F10 being the front-wheel drive next became the 310 model rather than the 200SX (early rear wheel drive model). The 200SX (Sylvia) I think was initially rear wheel drive and on a larger platform than the front-wheel drive F10 (to me it was more mid-sized, like the 510 or the 710). The “sporty” rear wheel drive 200SX then became the 240SX which I think ended (at least in the US) around 1998. To make things even more confusing, there’s a smaller front-wheel drive (Sentra-sized) 200SX Nissan that was around from 1994-1998 as a sporty model that coexisted with the rear-wheel drive 240SX (totally different platform but similar name)….wow, the marketing guys for Nissan must have also worked for Intel, their product naming conventions seem to be just to capitalize on the name of a previous successful model rather than to give you a good idea of which platform they are from (guess other manufacturers like Chrysler have done this when they downsized, causes lots of confusion because you need to know the year and the model to know what platform it is on)
Oh jeez, the smaller cars are even more confusing if you try to follow from the 70s through the current day. I think you’ve got it, although the Cherry/Pulsar and Sentra (Sunny) co-existed under various different names (in the US) until the B13 Sentra-based NX1600/2000, which replaced the N13 Pulsar NX/EXA – the only Pulsar variant sold in the US after 1983 (there were hatch and sedan body styles elsewhere). The NX1600/2000 then got replaced by the neo-200SX, which was essentially just a 2-door Sentra. As confusing as that is, it actually has some historical relevance since the 2nd generation Datsun 210 (Sunny B310) was the basis for the S10 Datsun 200SX (Silvia).
It’s a little easier to figure out if you start with the Japanese market names/platforms and trace the lineage from there, but it’s still confusing as hell because there’s so much crossover and recycling.
EDIT – Also, yeah the F-10 was part of the Cherry/Pulsar lineage, totally separate from the Silvia/RWD 200SX. It was a replacement for the Datsun 1000 (Cherry E10 – unrelated to the Sunny B10 Datsun 1000) and was replaced by the N10 Pulsar, which was only sold in NX (EXA) form in the US except for 1983 when there were also 3/5 door hatchbacks (there’s a CC on one of them). The hatch models were more or less replaced by the B12 Sentra hatch/sport coupe and all three were replaced by the Sunny B13-based NX1600/NX2000, while the N-series Pulsar continued outside of the US and was called the Sunny in some markets. Total insanity!!!
I think these were badged 200B s here, AKA “The 180B with twenty more faults”.
No, this was a smaller car sold alongside it as the Stanza. IIRC it was the first Nissan car in Australia to get a name rather than an alphanumeric, though elsewhere it was the 160J.
I had one of these, a red one, about 10 years old when I got it, with stick shift.
Quality of the hardware, seats, paint, etc. was not high. But the bones were decent and it provided me with reliable, zero cost, transportation for a couple years. (Zero cost because my strategy in those days was to always resell them for more money than I had into them, putting no value on my time).
That 510 also provided me with with fishing access to a small, private 100′ deep lake known for its whopper lake trout. While exploring the dirt access road to this lake, a pickup truck backed into the 510, smashing one of the tail light clusters. I agreed to settle on the spot. In exchange for lifetime boat access through his property to the lake, I agreed to forget about the damage.
Unbeknownst to him, I had a duplicate set of light clusters stashed away in my parts bin. So, for about 15 minutes of work I had access to a fishing spot available to few others.
I have real fond memories of that 510; reincarnated fake notwithstanding.
I had an 80 510 wagon 4 speed. Bought new for $6258. Don’t remember how long I kept it but it was a pretty reliable car. Tin worm started to feast on it. Gone.
It replaced a 1978 Bonneville I bought new. One of the gas shortages caused me to panic and get the 510. Guess I was young(er)and stupid!
Inflation is a bitch. I bought my first car out of college for about 20,000 more.
I just looked back at what I paid for my new 1978 Bonneville two years prior…$6250!
My MIL learned to drive stick from my FIL on a Datsun 510 wagon.
Given the ages of their children, I’ll bet it was much like this one.