We’ve had some really good luck with JDM Nissans recently and there will be other great ones soon, but let’s be realistic, here: there were always a number of stinkers on Nissan’s roster. All carmakers make mistakes, but in the ‘70s, Nissan made it a habit. Datsunfortunately what we have here. (I’m already regretting setting the bar so high, pun-wise).
I’ve already dumped a fair amount of criticism at Nissan’s door for their 120Y / Sunny / 210 abomination, so I won’t re-hash now what I wrote then. The thing about that car was that, despite its looks, it sold pretty well indeed. The 5th generation Bluebird, on the other hand, was something of a disaster both in terms of styling and domestic sales. (It seems they sold well in Australia, but I won’t let that spoil my bile.) So if I may, I’ll just reach for my can of whoop-ass and let her rip.
The 5th generation Bluebird appeared on a sad morning in July 1976. Some described it as a malformed blob of a saloon, devoid of any redeeming features except the ability to make children run away in terror, force grown men to tears and repulse women at fifty paces, which appealed to sociopaths. Others were less kind, pointing out that the Bluebird’s uninspiring underpinnings, in the low end of the 4-cyl. range, were an assault on the buying public’s intelligence and that the higher end 1800cc engine’s prodigious thirst was only matched by its propensity for dieseling, throwing rods, leaking oil and passive-aggressively refusing to shift into second gear.
4-cyl. Bluebird 810/811 – left: 810 sedan (1976-78); right: 811 coupé (1978-79); below: 6-cyl. 811 sedan
I’ll put that can away now – please disregard the previous paragraph, it was a little less rooted in reality than the Wizard of Oz. In fact, it was just opinion with a helping of untruths. Let’s try a more factual approach. The 810 Bluebird was a car. It debuted about a year late due to Nissan’s issues with adjusting to the First Oil Shock. It had four doors (or two), a choice of a 1.6 or a 1.8 4-cyl. in short-nose form and a 2-litre 6-cyl. in long-nose form. The 4-cyl. engines were the new Z16 and Z18 crossflows, using the Nissan Anti Pollution System. In August 1978, it was mildly restyled (except for the taxi version) and its name was officially changed from “Datsun 810” to “Nissan 811.” It went out of JDM production in November 1979. And despite my best efforts, I can’t help but despise it. See? Factual. All true, no fabrication, no exaggeration.
Ok, that was a wee bit boring, so let’s try the sarcastic / ironic approach. The featured car is a really nice example of the, like, soooo popular facelifted second series. The US-style bumpers and square headlamps were a genuine esthetic improvement. The fact that you had to pay extra for disc brakes (front only) was 100% justified and the lack of a 5th gear was a super smart move on Nissan’s part. It’s a complete mystery why this car’s successor was introduced several months ahead of schedule.
Oh, and the button-tufted seats were totally in keeping with the car’s character. Where did they find these innovative ideas? The central armrest doily on the featured car is another winner. Outside of Japan, this Nissan Bluebird was also known, depending on where it was sold, as the Datsun 160B/180B/200B, the Datsun 810 and the Datsun 1600/1800/2000. This was pure marketing genius, both easy to understand and completely sustainable in the long run.
Right, getting tired of this. Let’s try something else.
How about a profanity-laced rant? Hope there aren’t too many who will be offended. And if you are, well TOUGH TITTIES. Er, I mean, just skip this paragraph. This turdmobile has a retarded amount of lettering on its fat arse. It reads: Nissan NAPS Z 1800 GF E. I shit you not. What in the holy living f*$k can all that even mean? Can’t say for sure, so let’s try and unpack this c@%ksu*%ing Scrabble draw: “Nissan” makes sense, but that’s about bloody it. “NAPS”? Nissan NAPS? And then “Z,” just to emphasize the NAPS? Go back to bed and give me a goddamn break. The “1800” I can live with, but what about this moronic “GF E” at the end? Does that stand for “Go F*$k Eurself,” perchance? What galactically stupid asshole came up with that brainfart? And you’re using SIX motherfucking typefaces to boot? Get bent, Datsun of a bitch. Blow this, Bluebird.
Sorry about that. Glad I got it out of my system. Now to finish this post… hmmm… limerick?
There once was a Nissan named Bluebird,
That left most car buyers unstirred.
On the JDM
One would seldom see ‘em
So within three years it was interred.
So yeah, that’s all I had to say about that Bluebird. There were other Bluebirds before and after this one that would not elicit this kind of response from yours truly, but this one…
Related posts:
Curbside Capsule: 1977-81 Datsun 200B & 1985-86 Nissan Bluebird TR.X – Evolutionarily Stunted Bird, by William Stopford
CC Outtake/QOTD: 1998 Ford Windstar Northwoods & 1980 Datsun 200B Aspen GL – Stumble Across A Forgotten Limited Edition Lately?, by William Stopford
I love the color.
I love the wheels.
I like the button seats.
I like the quad lights.
I like the black trim on the bumpers.
I guess I should ‘fess up…
My name is “The” and I like 70s stuff.
I’m not entirely sure why the vile body has got you into such a state of agitation, as it could all be much worse – you’ve never had to drive one of the bastards.
Whilst you would not forget it, you would not wax lyrical or cynical or profane or limerically. You would simply be happy the occasion ended.
Starting, say, Here, Nissan’s patented ApproxoBox steering box would take only vaguely to There. The L-series 2-litre would carp and moan and scream if asked too much – such as rotating – and would gladly suck 19 mpg through the flat-spot-creating pollution inducer, and get you to 60mph (but briefly) and then reward your care by poofing out a headgasket every 50K. The cunningly designed NVH system was an early version of a sound tube, which, while admittedly effective at leaving no decibel under the hood under the hood, did remove all passenger’s hearing too.
It had Undirectional Sponge Chucker seats, no room, no detectable shock absorbers, and got gravel rash on the roof gutters if cornered at all. It created weather news when the wind noise was mistaken for mini-tornados (and that was just outside it).
I wasn’t too keen on them, frankly.
It’s true that they sold well in a petrol-spooked Australia of the late ’70’s, but by a stroke of good fortune, most buyers missed the delete option box marked “Rust Pack”, and thus 99% met an early oxidized demise.
I am sorry to see there is still a cousin abroad, yet comforted that that distance is far from here.
Very funny post, Mr T.
Ahh the 200B. Memories. The 180B (itself not that inspiring a car) but with 20 more mistakes, is a long running Australian joke.
They had 3 different rear suspension set ups (IRS and 2 live axle plus coil) and they still couldn’t get it right.
And drove as if all three were fitted at once.
In the US this was sold as the Datsun 810 for the entire run, in long-nose form only. The marketing angle was “the sedan (and wagon) with the heart of a 240Z”. That seemed an odd approach given the 240Z hadn’t been sold here for years, rather we now got the 280Z with a larger engine. The 810 had the 2.4L inline six. We didn’t get the button-tufted seats either – that would wait until the next two generations. My thoughts when these were new was that the styling wasn’t quite as bad as previous mid-’70s Datsuns, and was actually quite nice except for the obsolete kick-up in the rear side window area. The coupe didn’t arrive until the mid-cycle refresh with the rectangular headlights and new plaid upholstery in too many places, busying up an otherwise nice interior. We never got the more modern front end shown in the top photo. The next generation of Bluebird/810 was a start of much better times for Nissan.
Can somebody explain to me why JDM cars put their sideview mirrors all the way out on the front fenders? They look like crap almost like outriggers, They must be a pain in the ass to adjust, one person in the drivers seat and another moving the mirrors? And,they must be more prone to damage all the way out there on the fenders? On the other hand, the Japanese cars with RHD and driving on the right hand side of the road struck me as most logical, they’re never on the wrong side of the road.
By law, until 1983, sideview mirrors were legally required to be visible within the swept area of the windshield.
I wonered aloud about that a couple of days ago. Besides being ugly like a cheap JC Whitney add-on, they had to have been very convex to have a useful field of view, which would still have created a very small image. ITEMS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR ASSUMING YOU CAN EVEN SEE THEM.
Did I say they’re ugly?
Kurt Schwenk:
I have seen vintage (pre 80s) photos of British cars with the mirrors mounted in the same place, I don’t know if it was a coincidence or a consequence of living on a crowded island.
Our UK delivery (but purchased in the US) 1964 Volvo 122S had those mirrrors. They seemed to work well, though it was a long time ago and I only drove it regularly for a few years before getting my own 122S with US style mirror (singular). The biggest hassle I do recall was that you needed a wrench to adjust them. Probably Whitworth.
My wife’s grandpa got a new Jaguar MK IX in a957. My father in law (a mechanic turned carpenter) was just beginning to drive, and has always told me that car was the worst he’s ever driven, the dealer had to disconnect the power brakes (and his father almost crashed around the block of the dealership), carburettors were a nightmare, Lucas #&% etc, automatic gearbox would be too slow….and, more to the point, those mirrors were almost impossible to see and would move all the time.
He always tells me that they should have got a Fairline 500 (a top line Ford was really expensive in Uruguay at the time, so they would be comparable even though in general they weren’t). His father kept the Jag until the early ’70s. His only good feeling toward that car is the amazing quality of the interior and the fact that it could hit about 100 mph and not be too noisy about it…as long as you didn’t have to change direction or decrease speed.
Instead lace doilies and air conditioning, this car makes do with beach towels and sofa blankets on the seats and a 12 volt fan plugged into the cigar lighter!
Despite the dorky styling, questionable dynamics and interior, in it’s paper thin vinyl heat stamped filigree glory, it should have been apparent to Detroit mavens that the Japanese meant business, and at some point would produce a more credible effort that would really begin to eat their lunch.
I mean look at all that equipment, for crying out loud.
Intermittent wipers, AM-FM, tilt steering, who ever heard
of all that “luxury” equipment in one o’ them Japanese cars?
That would be more apparent with the next Datsun 810, which would evolve into the Maxima.
I have never been to California, but looking at this ad, I can just imagine the chord this thing struck with middle class San Fernando Valley tract house denizens, along with similarly priced products from Toyota and Honda.
The west coast market was the nascent harbinger of things to come.
Interesting to see the indestructible “Big Momma” US battle ram bumpers fitted to a JDM car, especially given the fact that the space is very much at premium in Japan.
Ah yes the 70s Datsun experience, good for headgasket changing practice and bogging up for inspection passes, pure driving rubbish, The 180B was bad these were worse, young guys in NZ are fascinated with anything 70s Japanese its quite tragic to watch but since they will keep them as pets they will never experience the true horror a daily(hopefully) driving one.I did drive a 180B from Batlow to Donnybrook WA and campaigned a 120Y 5000 kms in 6 weeks around Tassie but i wouldnt recommend one to anybody.
I understand that when these were new, the older 510s went into hiding from sheer embarrassment and shame.
Great googly-moogly. Yeah, just what drugs or weird fungus or ??? was in the water at Nissan? It wasn’t just this car or those years; how long did the Cedric…never mind, I don’t even need to go into it. The name alone is enough. As Oliver used to say to Lisa: “Oh, fer!” Toyota, working with the same palette of lines, curves, angles, and bulk-quantity funkatron, managed to make things dance and sing. The S60 and S70 Crown, e.g.
Aw, well. Poor ol’ Nissan. Points to you, T87, for rhyming for “Bluebird” with “unstirred”.
Go drunk, Nissan; you’re home.
Bulk Quantity Funkatron should be either my new album or my porn name.
I haven’t decided…
Make royalty cheques payable to Daniel Stern and send them to BQF Amalgamated Industries at the address below.
(It’s all accordin’ to where your funkatron situation stands, you understand…)
Never saw this variant of the Bluebird 810 before – it resembles the Violet (second generation 140/160J) from the same era. The lone surviving 160J in Barbados is this same color, with the same rain visors on the windows. One of you mentioned the US-style bumpers; I remember there was a variant of the US-spec first gen Mazda Protégé sold on the JDM with the bigger bumpers as well. A few came into my market as foreign-used cars. Didn’t know there was a six-cylinder variant of this car, either – presumably the forerunner of the first Maxima?
I have only ever had two hard mechanical failures on any vehicles in 44 years. Leaky water pumps, yeah, busted timing belt on my Vega (non-interference, about $30 to fix in 1977), loose ball joints and tie rod ends, sure, as well as bad alternators and master cylinders. But both real failures were on the same vehicle. My 1981 NAPS-Z Datsun 720 lost the transmission countershaft, and then shortly thereafter blew a head gasket, all at well under 100K miles. It wasn’t much fun to drive either, though I admit it took me to some fun places.
Yep, this generation Bluebird was every bit as bad as we’ve all indicated. If you’ve never experienced one, be thankful. This is maybe the worst car Nissan ever produced. Take all the invective everyone has said, add it all up and raise it to the power of, I dunno, a hundred or so? That sound about right, Justy? No wonder our good friend Professor Tatra was almost lost for words – I never thought I’d see that happen, But I digress…..
For some reason Australia did a go-it-alone with the two litre four, 1952cc IIRC. Crazy what trivia lurks in the nooks and crannies of the memory bank after all these years. Someone will know where that boat anchor came from. I’ve heard it was a pickup engine that already passed our emission regs, so they just bolted it in and called it done. Sounds plausible. I can only imagine that they thought a two litre six like Japan got would not be a good move for marketing reasons. Maybe people thought six=thirsty.
So why did it sell so well in Australia? Probably because its 180B predecessor had been Australia’s top selling four cylinder car for pretty much its entire model run (and understandably so, given the competition), and unless you read the motoring press you wouldn’t know that its successor was unworthy and indeed uncompetitive on so many fronts. People tend to stick with a brand they know, even when there are better alternatives.
Then Chrysler Australia (as it was in those days) really put the cat among the pigeons when they released the (Mitsubishi Galant) Sigma. People saw how good a Japanese two-litre sedan could really be – and 200B sales went off the cliff. To be honest, I don’t know that Nissan in Australia ever really recovered. The mid-size two litre class was where all the action was in those days, as the general feeling was that the big sixes had got too big, and the oil shock made buyers look to the smaller, tighter-around-the-shoulders two-litre fours as the new family car. And, as we’ve heard, the 200B wasn’t very economical. You don’t discover things like that on a test drive…
One more anecdote, and I’ll shut up. The early, cheaper-trim 200B had a particularly nasty grille with a couple of body coloured inserts, which looked like nothing so much as a huge pair of buck teeth. It looked worse in lighter colours. It’s quite hard to find a photo showing this clearly in Google (gee, I wonder why?), but I did track this one down. When the car was released in Australia, I recall folk in the tea-room at work looking at the ad in the morning’s paper and saying how ugly it was and “Surely they can’t be serious?” Higher-trim models used a grey plastic insert which minimised the effect somewhat, but the heavy verticals in the grille coupled with the thickish body-colour frame really emphasised the car’s narrowness. It’s a shame Nissan Australia didn’t cobble up a new grille before putting it on sale. Maybe head office wouldn’t let them; they had a habit of squashing local initiative over the decades.
BTW, that NAPS acronym stood for Nissan Anti Pollution System, and the -Z suffix was for the ultimate version of it. But I agree with the diagnosis of galloping scriptitis on this JDM Bluebird.
All true, though I reckon the 180B (610) looked worse and was in some ways nastier to drive. The 180B rusted too, but it redeemed itself a lot for many consumers by being very hard to destroy.
I have driven all three versions of the 200B, and just quietly, will admit that the last Aussie-adjusted one was a really big improvement for seats and handling, but ofcouse, the fundamental failures couldn’t be altered.
Amusingly, these cars all belonged to an eccentric friend who is these days an environmental activist, and doesn’t now own a car at all – surely the ultimate 200B effect there.
A friend’s wife managed to destroy an early 180B by rolling it on a corner of their gravel road when she was rushing to night shift at the hospital. She got out okay, the car not so much.
I think the grille change coincided with the regression to live rear axle (and maybe a general cheapening). I guess it had a lot to do with increasing local content for lower taxes.
I’m glad someone loves it, even if it’s not me. Would be a more boring world without the “why?” cars in it.
About those mirrors: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/11/18/reference/fender-mirrors/#.XYRB0iWRXYU
They are very useful (drove one car with them for a week) but they are fugly.
I like it, great find. Well, I like the outside more than I like the inside in its present state, but overall very appealing in that special way that some of these cars are. And that color, that’s the period equivalent of dark graphite gray metallic today. The multiple fonts on the trunklid are just the icing on this cake of goodness. You could add TURBO lettering from anywhere to this one and nobody would be the wiser…