1969 Datsun 1600 Roadster: A Fun Winter Project With A Pile Of Spare Parts

I’m on the fence when it comes to having a winter project. Sure, it’s good to ride out the storm by cozying up in the house and reading a book, watching TV, or sipping on a glass of bourbon, but there’s truly nothing like shaking off the winter blahs by resurrecting an old car that’s been lying dormant for 12 years, such as this 1969 Datsun 1600 Roadster (aka 1600 Sports), which recently sold for $7,000 on Cars & Bids in Tustin, California.

A winter project becomes easier if your new project car comes with a pile of spare parts, including an engine and transmission, two fan shrouds, prebent lines, and a whole lot more. It’s hard to say how much of this you’ll need, but if you have the space, nothing beats having spares.

The seller bought the car from a family member who had owned it since 2013, and although there’s a short video of the engine starting, it runs rough and will need some work before the new owner can even think of taking a spin.

The engine is a Datsun 1595cc overhead-valve four, which produced 96 horsepower and 103 lb-ft of torque. Road & Track tested a 1600 in their May 1967 issue and said that it offered “more for the money than any other sports car in the low-priced field,” a prescient comment when it came to the future of the ubiquitous British sports car. R&T found that the 1600 accelerated a lot like the Triumphs and MGs that the Datsun was aiming for: zero-to-sixty in 13.3 seconds, the quarter mile in 19.9 at 70 miles per hour, and a top speed of 101 miles per hour.

The carburetors were even similar to those found on the British competition, a pair of SUs built by Hitachi under license.

There’s almost nothing that won’t need the helping hand of the hobbyist, but the new owner can decide how far he wants to take the Datsun, from a tidying up to a full restoration. The interior is complete but worn, but there’s a spare set of seats in the parts pile at the very least. The transmission, as you might expect, is a four-speed manual, which is durable but apparently prone to eating itself up if the bearings and mainshaft are worn.

One nice thing about buying a California car is that they’re usually solid, which is good, because Datsuns will rust with the best of them.

The Cars & Bids ad says that there is “corrosion on the rocker panels, passenger-side quarter panel, trunk floor, firewall, and underbody components,” but unless I’m missing something, it’s extremely superficial. While we’re under here looking around, however, it’s a good time to mention that the car needs a complete brake overhaul and new tires. Brake parts are not, for the most part, something you’ll find on Rock Auto, but they are available from vendors such as Datsun Restoration Products or DatsunParts.com. Unfortunately, the Datsun’s relative rarity means that they’ll probably be priced more dearly than they would for something more common, such as an MGB.

Although the 1600 has a more than vague resemblance to an MGB, it is much more rare. Datsun made a total of just over 27,000 of them from 1965 to 1970, compared to something like a half-million MGBs over its long run. But you’ll get rugged Datsun mechanical bits and even a bolt-on hardtop, so even if there’s no making money on a project like this, you can’t put a price on getting out in the garage in the depths of January and wrestling with an old car in the hopes of eventually getting behind the wheel. Spring has to come sooner or later, right?