Corey Behrens has uploaded a batch of new recent finds to the Cohort, and this one gets to go first, as if we wait any longer, it might well collapse. This is some pretty impressive rust; I wonder how much less it weighs now then new. But it seems not to be sagging and appears to still be a driver.
Living in rust-free Oregon, color me impressed.
The other side is significantly less involved. I wonder what explains that? Yet the front fender is worse on this side.
It’s nice to see one of these still out and about. There were still several around in Eugene not that long ago, but I’ve not seen one in a couple of years now, although I did shoot another B210, its predecessor.
Here’s wishing you all a Happy New Year.
The German TüV inspectors would look at this car in horror and and tap vehemently on their temples, “Spinnen Sie!?” (Are you kidding?). Absolutely no chance of getting it passed.
My brother was given a lift in a Datsun Sunny years ago in Ireland. He could see day light through the sides of the footwells.” Good car this boys” said the driver ” Me brother was scraping it so I pulled he heap”. This was before th EU made annual inspections mandatory in member countries.
Dads buddy had a 120Y as a company car. Rust patches on the roof.No it didnt have a roof rack…
This car obviously came from a more snowy and winter state where road salt predominated for a good part of the year.
Wow. That one’s amazingly rancid! I’d imagine that it would be quite a bit harder, though not impossible, to get one of these to rust this bad in places where road salt or magnesium chloride isn’t used in the winter (I’m assuming that this car lived a good part of its life in salt country).
I remember seeing my Grandma’s old 1976 Datsun 710 running around northwestern Montana for some years after she sold it, with it displaying ever increasing amounts of rot in its later years. Stumbled into it again circa 1995 resting in a local wrecking yard; some of the contents of the trunk were hanging out through holes in the quarter panels. Good chance that it was given up on due to the advanced corrosion, as it wasn’t wrecked. And this was some years before the state/county/city traded sand and gravel for mag chloride. I had a few Datsun pickups that lacked in the rustproofing department, too.
Happy New Year to y’all, as well!
Happy New Year, everyone! For maybe the first time, I’m noticing a vague resemblance from the lead-off shot (rear three-quarter view) to an Alfa GTV.
Surprised it didnt split in two whilst driving all the way from Colorado to Oregan.How far is that?
Happy new year all! I hope we all have a better year than this Datsun 🥳
Paul:
This ” phenomenon ” of uneven rusting is familiar to any car owner of northern Pennsylvania, New York, and pretty much all New England states. My theory is that the driver’s side of this car was parked for most winters curbside somewhere and had a lot of salty snow/slush splashed on it.
Apparently the owner of this car is/was unaware that very regular trips to a car wash in winter (temperature permitting, obviously) would go a long way to mitigating the effects of road salt.
This car would never be driveable in Pennsylvania or New York with such obvious rust. I would guess this car is licensed in Maine or a surrounding state.
Oops, just noticed the Colorado license plate.
There is only two ways that a car like this could get around Maine’s state inspection. One is that the inspection mechanic owes the owner money or a favor. That is always obvious when you see a new sticker on something like this but your car flunked because you trimmed that frayed half inch off of the end of the passenger side wiper. The second way is to run Antique Plates, available for cars over 25 years old and no inspection is required. People do abuse that loophole but they are usually poor and the first major repair is the end of their plan to outsmart the government. If what you can see looks this bad, the underside looks worse.
In Virginia, abusing the antique plate loophole got so bad that the state changed the law to mandating that you had to have one four wheeled motor vehicle under regular license before you could own a second vehicle under an antique plate.
We also have something called a “farm vehicle” which is a simple red and white plastic plate that goes on the back of a vehicle. Intention is that this is a vehicle that is used on the property 99% of the time, but is allowed to use the public roads occasionally for moving between fields, hauling necessary supplies, etc. No inspection, no renewal, no nothing, just a legal acknowledgement from the state that you have the vehicle and drive it in a limited fashion.
Yes, it occasionally gets abused. Most classic one was a resident of downtown Alexandria, VA who had one on his Ferrari. And got away with it – for a while.
I could save this car. I’ll need a gallon of POR – 15, some thin gauge sheet metal, tin snips, drill, pop rivet gun, and rivets.
ONLY a gallon of POR-15?
Ok, two gallons if POR-15. When the body is done, two gallons of Rust Oleum Professional in a nice Primrose ( yes, it can be tinted. I’ve done it). Oh, and some high quality caulk to seal things up .
Being a Datsun, the drive train is probably still going strong, while the body and interior plastics crumble to dust.
+1 on the drivetrain. If they can copy a poorly designed, 3 main bearing British engine and make it run good, like the 1300 in the ’66 PL411 I had, this should be a breeze 🙂
Happy New Year!
This reminds me of my ’69 510, although mine was not quite so rusty.
Honestly this a true car that have more than 40 years running. Nowadays plastic car and rechargeable cars are made only for 10-5 years, then you will change for a new one as a smart phone… I rescue one on worse condition and now I really enjoy this true car
Nonsense, if you put in the time and maintenance you can keep any car running. Usually it’s just not worth it economically so they get crushed.
Oh my – *This* is a rusty car! The rust patterns are puzzling though. The passenger side looks like the way these would normally have rusted. Someone once told me that the passenger side normally gets the worst of it because puddles of briny water pool at the edges of crowned roads, for more splash.
But the driver’s side is clearly the worst – except for that front fender, that is nearly perfect. Howard’s idea of passive salt spray is interesting, or perhaps the door and quarter were repaired with cheap aftermarket panels, followed by a more recent repair of the front with a good used original or higher quality part? Of if (what’s left of) that body could talk.
I suspect the rust is about equally extensive on both sides but more of the holes opened up and paint flaked off the driver side due to more frequent door slams. I’d wager that you could easily peel away the paint on the passenger side in sheets if you started picking at it
Nice patina!🙂 Happy New Year everybody!
It would be easy to find if ever stolen (HAH)…follow the rust trail.
Impressed that it hasnt fallen on the ground yet so that isnt structural rust a few barrow loads of filler some sanding and a splash of paint and it would be good to go,
The worst I ever saw still in use was a 70s Landcruiser doing boat launching duty there was little above the chassis rails but a seat and part of the firewall mechanically it looked fine, I saw it in action hauling a boat up the ramp, there was no rego label or anywhere to put one and only one numberplate so it likely wasnt road legal anymore but usefull, most definitely.
Left front fender is probably a collision repair on which the rust hasn’t perforated yet. Paint is in better shape, and it doesn’t line up with the door.
That was my immediate thought as well.
The rest of it is impressive though. Hard to find something that ripe in its country of origin…
Happy 2022, everyone!
This is amazing. As much as I love Datsuns (I have a 1970 510, purchased back in 1981), I have to admit, they were absolutely awful when it came to rust—at least here in the land of salt, as others have commented. The ’81 Datsun 720 pickup I onwed back the mid-’90s, for example—not only were the floors completely rusted away, but much of the firewall area was, too… so much so that you could touch the front tires with your feet from inside the cab of the truck. Made for some very chilly drives in the winter, that’s for sure. But, of course, other than that little issue, it was rock-solid reliable, and would have gone a couple of million miles I think… if the body hadn’t rusted away around the drivetrain.
I think you guys targeting snow and salted roads are way off. Oregon is a coastal state. Ocean coast. I bet it was (maybe still) parked right off the ocean where it got salt spray daily, year round.
It’s got Colorado plates on it. Salt water would sink a battleship in much less than 40 years. Datsun’s started rusting in the showroom when new.
First job out of college in Minneapolis, I remember seeing many 10+ year old Pintos and Vegas that looked like that. Of course with corporate 3M nearby, there was plenty of silver duct tape to reinforce the gaps. Occasionally you would see it somewhat color-coded to the body, usually on the same vehicles with red tape covering broken tail light lenses.
It has been my observation that the driver’s side of the car rusts more quickly because of exposure to salt spray from opposing traffic. This seems to be the case here. I had an ’81 Cutlass Ciera Sedan I got free from my mother-in-law, a Montreal car, at 10 years old. It had somewhat less rust than this. I was able to get it safetied with sheet metal, pop rivets, roofing tar, and fiberglass. The best thing about this car was how easy it was to merge into traffic or change lanes. You just signalled and cranked the wheel. A hole would magically open for you. It was the total opposite of driving a brand new car, where you are paranoid about the first dent.
PS on Montreal. I once jumped into a taxi in downtown Montreal going to Dorval (YUL). This car was 3 model years old. Looking down at my feet I could see the roadway though a large hole in the floor.
Wow, I had a ’74 Datsun 710 when I was an undergraduate up north (45 years ago)…after I got my first professional job I was driving up in it to visit my parents, as I’d moved about 200 miles away, and slid on some black ice on I89 and bit the guard cable…not too bad an accident, smushed the fender and a headlight, but it convinced me I needed better traction…either a heavier car or FWD (which wasn’t too common yet). For that matter, 710s weren’t common either, I saw way more 210s (B210s I guess) and 610s than 710s, guess the predecessor of the Altima sized Nissan hadn’t caught on yet.
One of my co-workers had a ’79 310 Coupe, (FWD) and I remember these 210s being sold new…but of course I already had a light RWD Datsun. Don’t remember why I didn’t get a 310, probably because they were too new and hence expensive (I was newly in my job and it would have been tight to get a new car then, especially with high interest rates…my Manager was actually president of the company credit union (an unpaid job that had NOTHING to do with our regular job) and I think he interceded on my behalf and helped me get $500 extra on my loan, which was based on membership duration (which of course was only a few months by then for me) and I ended up buying a used ’78 Scirocco which was a good car for me, sporty when I was younger, only sold it after I moved to Texas since it lacked air conditioning (could have added it but didn’t).
The 710 was ideal for a student, slow and dependable, only refused to start during the week of the blizzard of ’78, despite being parked outdoors all the time. I sold it myself after I got the Scirocco, and it sold easily probably because people were looking for small cars in general since memories of gas shortages were still pretty fresh in Jan ’81. As mentioned I could have gotten a heavier RWD car, but that would have been more expensive, both in gas, and in purchase price (guess I could have bought older used RWD car but gas availability was still question in early 80’s). The test drive was a comedy, actually had the body side molding fall off, and the bumpers were heavily rusted (of course the “cow catcher” bumpers held snow thrown from the wheels and let it sit inside so it rusted inside out. I was actually shopping for replacement bumper when a co-worker overheard my phone call (to a wrong number) where I asked “Do you have any Datsun bumpers in your yard?”…so I was trying to keep up the car prior to the accident.
It was a good, conventional car, slow as molasses, and automatic (till it warmed up you needed to put it into neutral at stoplight lest the rear end crab out due to engine idle speed, guess the choke was optomistic). I did tuneups on it, added mudflaps (not that they helped the rust situation any) and other small things. Only problems I had with it were normal, alternator went bad, and blew a heater hose when I was on interview trip to MA (for the job I eventually got). Almost forgot, it had Rusty Jones treatment but like most cars up north it still rusted.
This makes me feel particularly old today…looking at a car I might have bought new, rusted through.