(first posted 2/11/2018. commentary added 2/8/2024)
Nissan entered the seventies with a terrific reputation, thanks to the class-beating 510. Now Nissan seemed intent to mess it all up some, and not just with a model numbering system that made no sense. The new 710 was intended to essentially replace the 510, but it was dumbed down and cheapened, resulting in just another very average car in its class. It lost its IRS, the body felt tinnier and it was noisier inside. The engine was rougher and noiser, and had lots of driveability issues. R&T summed it up: “a cheap imitation at a much higher price”.
The 510 had undoubtedly been somewhat expensive to build. The 610, which arrived in 1973 and was bequeathed the 510’s IRS, was a larger and more upscale car, but it was carefully designed to reduce production costs. The 710 was heavily based on the 610, sharing a shortened floor pan. front suspension, brakes and other elements, but with a leaf spring rear axle and other cost cutting. Obviously its model designation no longer fit in the established hierarchy; why weren’t the 610’s and 710’s names reversed? Ah; Nissan in the seventies, where many strange things occurred.
That’s not to say the 710 couldn’t be fun to drive; it was, once the engine warmed up and behaved. The 710 handled well enough so that the IRS was actually rarely missed. But the package just didn’t exude that something special, the secret sauce that made the 510 a cult classic almost from day 1. Oh well…
Over an Hour Later& Still No Comments.Sunday Is A Working Day Here So I Keep Forgetting That It’s God’s day Over there.We Used To Get 710s Here As 200K.That L20 Motor Lasts Longer Than Persian Carpets.
Got lots of headgasket replacement practice on those Datsun’s but they are easy to rope tow home.
This was my first car, I had it through my whole undergraduate studies in Vermont.
My car was a 4 door automatic (haven’t owned an automatic since I sold it in 1981) with white vinyl seats (colorful interior!) unfortunately with brown carpet (in a car with a bright blue exterior…guessing the brown carpets came with all color cars. It was a good first car and very old-school, I learned to do tune-ups and other work on it; it was parked outdoors and the only time it didn’t start was a week during the blizzard of ’78 (probably exactly 40 years ago!) when I had to bum a ride into school from my Father.
It had an issue with high idle speed when cold, such that I got in the habit of putting it into neutral at a stop light when cold to keep the rear end from sliding out due to low friction. I told my sister this before she borrowed my car to go to her job but of course she forgot about it and I had to pick her up in my Parent’s car.
Only other non-externally induced problems were that it burst a heater hose when I was travelling to Massachusetts for a job interview. It had Rusty Jones treatment when new but still rusted (mostly the cow-catcher bumpers). I ended up pushing in the front end after hitting some black ice just outside White River Junction on a Friday evening trip up to visit my Parents after I got my first job (in Massacusetts). I got it fixed up but sold it partly because I wanted to get a FWD car for better traction, and partly because that FWD car was a VW Scirocco (still my favorite car of all that I’ve owned). At the time I sold it, gas was high and small cars were selling well so I had no trouble selling it despite questionable test drives where trim fell off the car during the drive (due to rust issue) but the buyer didn’t seem to mind, it was easy to sell (maybe this experience colored my tendency to sell my own car, having never traded a car in….guess this also is because I’ve only bought 1 new car so far).
It wasn’t a particularly fun car, but it was reliable at a time I needed a reliable car. Guess they weren’t very popular even when new, I saw more wagons than any other style, the 2 door coupe (vs the 2 door sedan shown in this test) was particularly rare. I added a set of aftermarket gauges to mine, as well as mudflaps, but otherwise left it alone.
Wow, February….50 years ago I started driving 1974 Datsun 710. Probably not a favorite of many, but looking back on it probably one of the best choices I could have made at that time. No, it was pretty bad in snow (which is the main reason I got rid of it in 1981) but it was a go from point a to point b car without much fuss, and that’s what I needed for 4 years of undergraduate studies and a bit more than half a year of my first job. I mentioned taking it to Massachusetts for a job interview where it lost a cooling hose….but that’s about as bad as it got, the car treated me very well in terms of repairs which was great since I had to do most of them myself without having much money. Along the way had to replace the alternator, but that’s about it. I did my own tune ups, oil changes, lubes and so on, this is the car that I started learning how to do all that stuff on. It was completely conventional; best description I could make is that it made few demands on me and those demands were pretty minor.
Probably should have considered buying a 310 in 1981 when I decided a light rear wheel drive car was no longer what I wanted, but the Scirocco caught my eye and moved me over to VW which I still have yet to stray from. My two youngest sisters took over buying Nissan having owned qty-4 between them, my surviving middle sister still owns the ’97 she bought new. Guess I’m more than a little sentimental, and as my first car I appreciate what owning it did for me.
Between the 240Z, the 510, and the Datsun pickup, I thought that Datsun had a pretty good shot at ruling the American automotive scene in the early 70’s. In my neck of the woods at least (Pittsburg, PA), Datsuns were everywhere, and at one point nearly as common as VWs while Toyotas were still not that common or desirable as they hadn’t yet built their reputation.
Then Datsun just sort of melted away… in all senses of the word. The cars rusted faster than anything which was saying something…. the designs got fat and ugly -Honeybee anyone?- and then despite all the name recognition built up with
“Datsun nice car you got there” advertising, they decided to become Nissan.
There’s a book in that story, I think.
Payam,
This car gets few comments because it evokes few comments.
It was sturdy, reliable, reasonably economical, all the kinds of descriptors used for an appliance. By contrast, the Toyota Corona was thought of as being almost “European looking”.
One of the few good things you can say about these Datsuns is that they weren’t as wild and far out looking as the cars Datsun would sell in the late 70s through the 80s.
It was around this time that Datsun was losing its mojo, and it wouldn’t begin to recover it for another decade or so. An odd little point about the ’74 710 is that the coupe had a front bumper with turned-up ends while the other models had a straight-across bumper. Neither works well stylistically.
When the 5mph front bumper regulation was phased in, it didn’t get applied to all cars at the same time. Cars that were produced in small numbers and coupes/2 door hardtops were the last models to be required to have stronger bumpers. One reason why many American cars had those huge bumpers in 73 while small, foreign cars like the Porsche 914 had two blocks of rubber added to their 72 model bumpers.
First of all apologies if this is a duplicate. The first attempt sat for hours on “Waiting” and appears to have gotten lost in the ether.
The cockroach of the 1970’s still getting no respect. Another car that I am intimately familiar with in a gearhead sort of way. Not creepy or weird trust me. After doing three collision repairs on one back in the 90’s, long after the scrapyards were clear of them and with no support whatsoever from the aftermarket, I came to appreciate the curvy shape of these cars. Working in the driveway under a big maple tree with a port-a-power, a set of torches, hammer and dollies straightening a crumpled front end will do that. Lucky only the right front corner took the brunt of the collision is what I was thinking. Until a few months later when a taxi backed into the left front corner while it was parked on the street and pulled a runner. Third time’s a charm when a drunk driver creased the entire left side of the car while again parked on the street. Six other cars were damaged as well.
That was the second consecutive 710 in the family it was a 75 two door sedan. B pillar with flip out rear windows and battering ram bumpers. The first one was a ’74 hard top. No b-pillars and the back windows rolled down too. The roof line was lower than the sedans and it had the small bumpers tucked up tight to the body which really improves the appearance. Decades later I regret sending that one to the boneyard. It was pulled off the road on a 10 day repair order. I had all the parts to repair it and make it “safe” yet I was unwilling to do the work for free. Mechanically the car was fine it just had rotted out wheel arches in the rear, sunburnt paint and a few blotches of primer. Surprisingly enough I still have the wheel arch repair panels and a set of rocker panels for a 710.
Mehanically the two 710s were very solid. In typical Nissan fashion the ’74s shared the same front brake calipers and pads as the 510 and the ’75s were different. That is only once the ’74 only parts ran out and they began installing the ’75 and later brakes. sheesh what a pain it was sourcing parts for that ’75.
The 75 would take us on an epic road trip from Hamilton ON to Mexico City in December of 1993 where we ran the gauntlet that is mexican traffic for a month before returning safely with no issues whatsoever.
The 75 is gone now for at least a dozen years. If I could find another solid one locally I would snap it up right away. “Solid one locally” is the only thing keeping me from having one more project.
They were just throw away econoboxes with no endearing qualities whatsoever. Contrary to what most people think, they are not “good on gas” by today’s standard anyway. They are not even in the same league as the 510 yet I have a soft spot for these as well.
There it is just above my post. A picture of the small bumper hardtop. Cool.
I am based in Beirut LEBANON. I have small collection of american and other vintage cars. as this topic about 70s Datsun being a compact I bought 81 AMC Concord DL coupe blue exterior with light blue velvet interior 2.5 4cylinder engine, Factory AC, factory AMFM, rear defrost has 50K original miles. most of my classic cars are larger I appreciate any views of my Concord compared other compacts of era such this Datsun.
I have not owned a Concord, but have owned a Hornet which is a less luxurious version of the same car, and also owned a Datsun 510. You can’t really compare them directly. The Datsun was a smaller and lighter car with a small (by American standards) OHC 4-cylinder engine, considered a subcompact at the time. Hornet/Concord weighed about 1000 pounds more and was designed to be powered by sixes and V8s, though later on a largish pushrod 4 was also offered. The cars had completely different characters.
The Datsun was a lot more fun to drive, came with more standard equipment, and was more advanced engineering-wise. (Though the 710 profiled here did unfortunately lose the 510’s independent rear suspension.) However Hornet/Concord was more in line with traditional mainstream American tastes of the day, particularly amongst older adults.
Really, the cars to directly compare the Concord to would be other American compacts of the 1970s and early 1980s like Nova, Maverick, Valiant, etc.
Unlike the 510, nobody was going to smother their affection, leave their wife, or take out a home equity loan to buy a 710. As another poster mentioned, they were disposable cars that did their duty well enough and then rusted to dust. I recall driving a couple, and they really didn’t leave much of an impression on me.
Not that this is a bad thing. Here on the salt free West Coast these old Datsuns ran for a good thirty year before they finally disappeared. They were mechanically very solid cars, and the SOHC engine was about as reliable as a Slant Six. A 710 would drive you to the supermarket for a couple of decades without much bother.
I wonder how much of the 510’s long-held aura and current classic status is owed to the fact it was so much better in almost every way to the model that replaced it?
The 510 was just an amazing car all around particularly at the price point that it sold at. Datsun never was able to recapture that old magic, not even with the 2nd-gen 510 which was just an ordinary dull-as-dishwater subcompact. Too bad they didn’t have better rustproofing. (A fault shared by many cars of the era.)
I second that, i owned a 1969 510 totally amazing car. the BMW of it’s time.
The BMW of its time… quite valid. I had access to a 2002 BMW that my parents had at the time. A friend had access to his father’s 2 door 510. Very impressive vehicle for the money. Good memories.
Datsun seemed on top of the world in the early 70s … and totally lost the plot ten years later. Cars like this one were responsible. I wouldn’t mind one today but a lame duck of its time.
Had the station wagon, purchased new. It was great car. Engine provided good power delivery (for the era) with the 4 speed manual transmission. Reliable and practical. Was more engaging to drive than a modern small SUV. Wouldn’t mind having this car again.
Wagonizing the 710 probably washed away a lot of the “worse-than-the-510ness”; you weren’t losing the IRS since the 510 had always had a live axle in wagon form, you weren’t losing rear headroom because the roof slope by definition didn’t start until well past the rear seats, and you got a lot more glass than in the 710 sedans and coupes.
The problem with the 710 was twofold. It ditched the independent rear suspension, and it was based on the JDM Violet series, which was a step below the Bluebird/510. The US 610 was actually the continuation of the Bluebird series, but Datsun decided to load them up and charge more. Adding insult to injury, there were Violets with IRS (the SSS models, for super sport sedan), but here again, Datsun saw no need to send over these versions, completely missing the whole point as to why people responded so well to the 510 in large part.
There were SSS versions of most Datsun sedans some were just a stripe kit others slightly more involved, Locally 1200 engines were sent to a well know tuner then sent for assembly into cars as Datsun didnt have a performance version on its books on the JDM, We got some Datsun Violets diverted from Australia gawd knows why they werent much good though sought after now by people who dont remember them new.
The degree to which the 710 Violet looks like the by then several-year-old Mazda Capella/RX-2 — and to a slightly lesser extent the original Mitsubishi Colt Galant — is sort of disconcerting. It’s like realizing someone’s kid looks suspiciously like their two coworkers who both mysteriously disappeared midway through the company holiday part a few years earlier.
I happen to like the original Capella and Galant, which were pleasant-looking designs, but I have to wonder if Japanese buyers found the Violet a little dated by 1973–74.
3.89 gears, no overdrive, and short 13″ tires. Just…wow. 4000RPM highway, anyone? (Which is one reason for the nearly-painful sound level at 70.) Yeah…no. Gimme a Mopar A-body.
My 66 Hillman runs a 3.89 rear axle but now on 14s highway rpm 3300 @ 100kph hasnt been faster engine is still new and tight
I own one of these 710s currently. I think its comical that these were created as an answer to rising costs. I’ve come to the conclusion that I will never sell it. It has its quirks but those are the easy places to improve upon. Its not a race car like the 510. Its has its own economic personality.
Despite not really living up to the 510 (a girl I knew in Baltimore had a new red ’72 2 dr and I was really impressed with it) in it’s mechanical specifications, I really liked the odd-ball styling of the 710 and 610, sort of Japanese Godzilla science fiction meets ’72 GM mid-size. Try to find one now, the tissue paper bodies dissolved in no time making the few that exist today a real collectible. The drive-trains were solid, the bodies not so much, pretty much like all Japanese cars of the ’70s.
At the end of 1974 R&T published a retrospective of the cars they’d tested that year. Their take on the 710 was, “Our review was anything but rave, and a journalist acquaintance in Canada who bought one thinks we were too kind to the car.”
What were the rules governing advertised horsepower numbers in 1975? 93 net horsepower combined with 2,370 pounds of curb weight should have made this car much quicker that it was. I know Road & Track wasn’t above trying harder with cars from operations that they liked, but the 69.5 mile per hour trap speed almost correlates with the awful elapsed times. The 1.8 OHV J-car engine’s 85 rated horsepower were underachievers, but this car’s horses were even smaller.
Japanese horses are smaller than American horses, and American horses are smaller than German horses. Look up road tests and for comparable weight/HP cars, the Germans are always faster, domestic next and Japanese last. I figure it’s like this, the Germans rate them as every last one will put out at least X HP. American manufacturers make it an average and the Japanese list it as the absolute maximum that one will put out. No, it’s not racism, it’s how countries rate and measure products. Marketing 101.
Back on 510s/710s, emissions, safety and bumpers were a challenge back then, but it’s hard to see uglier and slower as a win. I wasn’t actually wow’d by the 510s I drove, but apparently they responded exceptionally well to minor tweaking and they looked good. And their long life as rally cars says something. The 710? Uh, I’m at a loss. Well, I guess they made Datsun money, but beyond that…
American compacts tended to perform the worst relative to their rated hp/weight ratios by the end of the ’70s, and the national generalizations seem to have been replaced by actual standards since then. Car and Driver dyno tested a bunch of cars around 2007, and the Hondas came the closest to their rated outputs over the BMWs and then the Detroit examples chosen.
The tests were done on chassis dynos, and so the efficiency of the transmissions and quality of driveline components played a big role. I believe they did include a VW-Audi with a small displacement turbo engine that claimed a flat torque ‘peak’ from 2,000-5,000 RPM only to learn that the engine indeed had a torque curve which didn’t much resemble the manufacturer’s claim, but other than that it seemed like auto companies were playing it straight by then.
510s needed a rollcage Ove never seen a B post shake like in a Bluebird on a washboard road they were light and flimsy stock
While we didn’t get these in Australia, we did get the successor as the Stanza, the one that looked like a fussied-up 510. I remember reading a road test which said that you could see the doors moving in their openings over bumps. They didn’t seem to sell well.
Those had body integrity issues like the 510 and yes Ive been in one at speed, not overly impressive but with enough aftermarket imput they rallied quite well in OZ stock they were not much of a car.
Wheels did a hatchet job (deserved) in the Stanza SSS. I believe that’s the road test you’re thinking off.