(first posted 3/2/2018) From some distance across the parking lot, I thought maybe I was really going to score. That mellow-honey colored peanut of a car just screamed “B210 Honey Bee” to me, something that has eluded me thus far in my hunting. But as I wended my way between rows of silver CUVs and got closer to it, I realized it was just a plain old B210. Now that certainly shouldn’t be grounds for disappointment, as B’s all seem to have disappeared along with real honey bees, which are of dying off at staggering rates.
OK, so Honey Bees are suffering from the same issue as real bees; still, you’d think there was one left. No such luck. But given its honey color, we have to give this one an appropriate name: Bit•O•Honey.
In my candy-eating days of yore, this was one of my favorites. Chewy and sticky, but not to an extreme. And most of all, it was cheap; probably the cheapest sugar delivery system per ounce. Obviously the folks at Datsun USA headquarters ate a lot of the stuff, and were duly inspired.
The Datsun Honey Bee was a way of giving the cheapest stripper version in the line a bit of…buzz. Datsun’s take on the Chevette Scooter, except as the ad points out, it comes with a standard back seat. It arrived in 1975, one year after the unsweetened regular B210, and presumably it was a way to keep its price low during a time of considerable inflation. Or stimulate sales after gas prices stabilized again.
It was a blatant repudiation of what the Japanese had pioneered and used to launch their conquest of the American market; well-equipped small cars. But the Honey Bee was a genuine American-style stripper, lacking all sorts of little amenities that the regular B210 had. Here’s a complete list of everything that was stripped out, from datsun1200.com:
- No Wheel covers (dog dish caps fitted)
- No “honeycomb” wheel covers
- No Spare tire cover
- No Trunk mat
- No Cigarette lighter (blind plug fitted)
- No Speedometer trip meter
- No Rear window defogger switch (blind plug fitted)
- 1976 Honey Bee has the defogger
- No Carpet (only Mat)
- California models included carpet
- No Arm rest (pull handle is fitted)
- No Door trim moulding
- No Rear side moulding
- No Rear seat ashtray
- No Wiper blade high-speed fin (uses basic type from 620 truck)
- No Door lamp switch for assistant side
- No Console box
- No Non-glare glass
- No Chrome moulding for windshield
- No Chrome moulding for rear window
Changed Equipment:
- Blackwall tires now fitted (instead of whitewalls)
- Trunk finisher: hardboard instead of laminated
- Front seat is folding only, instead of reclining + forward-folding
- Interior Trim: Black or Beige only (Deluxe has Black, Blue or Brown)
- Floor trim: Black only (Black or Brown in California)
But for 1976, the stripe was made bigger.
And check this out: there were two variations of the actual Honey bee; this is the “racer bee”.
And this is the “flying bee”, or maybe “stoned bee” might be more accurate. Presumably Honey Bee owners had a choice depending on which one suited their personality. Which would you have gotten? And yes, that’s a non-Honey Bee B210 wheel cover, despite it having a honeycomb design.
This seems to be turning into a Honey Bee CC, even if we don’t have the real thing on our hands. OK; enough of that; let’s talk B210.
The B210 arrived at a fortuitous moment in history; in the fall of 1973, right as the first energy crisis kicked off. Which made it a very common sights on our streets. And they were still pretty common here a few years back, including a number of coupes.
I shot this one a few years back, and have never gotten around to writing it up. Like so many cars I’ve shot, it’s just itching to be released from its digital tomb. One of these days; maybe now.
It is the proverbial honey pot at the end of the rainbow.
My son Ed really wanted one of these back in the day; he ended up with a gen1 RWD Mazda 626. Close, but the Mazda was a much more substantial and comfortable ride, in relative terms. These were a bit on the primitive side. But that’s what a lot of young folks back then were quite content with.
I’ve got another B210 to share; hang on.
In the meantime, let’s get back to our current Bee, which may well be one of the last on the streets here, if not the last. Which is a depressing thought. So many interesting old cars are dying off, just like the bees.
The color of the vinyl is right, but that’s not an original seat; the shape is all wrong. Instead of the seat bottom flaring out at the front, it tapers in. Does anyone recognize it?
Here are the seats in the coupe; quite different. This steering wheel is a lot better too. And it has a stick; the sedan is saddled with an automatic; not exactly a happy combination with either the 1.3 or 1.4 L A-Series pushrod four.
These engines were already classics at the time. The Nissan A Series engine dates back to 1967, and although new and with an alloy head, it pays tribute to the BMC A Series engine, which Nissan had licensed. But the Nissan A series was substantially different, and had an alloy head with much better porting. They were tough, reliable, frugal, and very amenable to hopping up.
This is how they often ended up looking like. These bees had a sting, and were very active and successful on the SCCA racing circuits.
Somewhat curiously, our featured car is missing its back seat, and has become a plywood-sided cargo area, here put to good use transporting an antique bugle. No, there’s nothing odd about this, it is Eugene, after all.
It’s very common to poke fun at these cars. And easy. They’re often derided as the ultimate cheap, tinny, automotive shit box. But in contemporary reviews and comparisons, it was generally considered to be the equal of its direct competitors, such as the Corolla and the Colt and such. It actually came in #4 in a nine-car R&T comparison test that we posted her, just ahead of the Corolla.
Its harsh and skittish rear axle was the biggest complaint, but that applied to pretty much all of the old-school RWD small cars from Japan. In order to have enough carrying capacity, the leaf springs had to be pretty stiff, given that this B210 weighs in right at one ton (2,000 lbs). 0-60 in that test happened in 17.3 seconds; 68 or 70hp does have its limitations. I wouldn’t be surprised if the automatic extended that closer to 20 seconds.
This post started as an Outtake, but it just doesn’t want to quit, a bit like the B210, which were known to be mechanically very robust, even if their bodies weren’t in the face of calcium chloride. So I’m going to pull out my favorite B210 in my files, another one I’ve been sitting on for some time. In the case of this green four-door, I was hoping to eventually catch up with the owner, because I’ve seen him driving it around town for quite a few years. He’s a good-sized man, in his 50s, perhaps, and I’ve even seen him driving around this part of town with two big teenage boys in it.
Given the fantastic condition of the interior, he probably doesn’t drive his kids on a daily basis.
But I’ve seen it around town in a number of places, and it took me a while before I caught up with it to shoot it.
Is this the best preserved B210 sedan in the land?
I would love to know its history. Did an aunt or uncle buy it during the energy crisis, and then shortly afterwards have a medical crisis? And the B210 sat for several decades until its fate was resolved?
Maybe one of these days I’ll finally catch up with him.
I should point out that the four door sedan was the wallflower of the B210 family. Folks went for the coupe, if they could swing it, or the el-cheapo two door, if they couldn’t. Looking at how far the front seat intrudes into the rear door area, it was not really a good choice. The front door was too small, and the rear seat was only worthy for kids or nimble young adults, so why bother? And it looked a bit pinched; the B210 was a bit eccentric enough looking as it was, along with the other Nissans of this illustrious design era.
By that I’m particularly thinking of the 200SX (Silvia S10), which was based on the B210. Of course, I could be thinking about the 601 or 710, or most of all the F10.
If you think the B210 is a bit..alien looking, feast your eyes on the F10, its FWD compatriot. This was Datsun’s stylistic dark night of the soul. And they almost didn’t survive it.
Yes, the B210 looks downright conventional compared to the f10. And two door work better than that four door, especially after the rear seat has been eliminated altogether.
Now if only one of Eugene’s bee swarm rescuers drove a Honey bee, or at least a B210. This reminds me: when we needed a huge old bee colony moved out of our garage wall in Los Gatos, the guy that came and relocated them drove a VW T2 bus with a Corvair engine. With twin glass packs, it really buzzed.
I will be sad to see the last of these B210s. They provided cheap wheels back in the day, and I have vivid memories of what they felt like to drive or ride in: minimalist motoring, unlike anything since. But it’s nice to refresh the memories one more time, thanks to this Bit•O•Honey.
By modern standards, Datsun’s unusual styling of that era now looks somewhat more ‘conventional’.
In Oz they were called the 120Y, but had a 1200 engine. Cheap, reliable transport and fun to drive (manual) like other small RWD Japanese cars. Rusted well, but not nearly as well as the big brother 180B (1800cc – 710??). The late 70s Datsun utes/pickups were the champion rusters though. I’m sure that cost Datsun/Nissan hugely in lost sales afterwards.
People bought them despite the alien styling and loved them in the 5 minutes they had before the tinworm hit.
I guess it was something about the styling, but I always thought that these B210s looked like the suspension had a bit too much travel in it, like the body was too far above the wheels. Another thing I was never too crazy about was the choice of colors. But then, Toyota didn’t do much better…..and for that matter neither did Ford or Chevy on their smallest cars.
I am surprised by the changes made to get a “regular” B into a Honey B. I had always assumed it was mostly the yellow paint and removal of the wheelcovers. Never knew there were different types of Honey B models.
Thanks for the great post on another of my personal CC favorites! That picture of the blue hatchback with the rainbow was a real treat. So much B-210 goodness on a Friday morning! How can I stand it?
Mine was a ’74 hatchback in the butterscotch yellow color that about half of B-210s came in (or so it seemed.) I got it as a $400 beater that may not have harmed any bees but was a threat to the local mosquito population for several minutes after a cold start.
I was working in auto parts at the time and old Datsun parts were dirt cheap, so I disassembled the engine, had the head remanufactured and treated it to a new set of rings, bearings, gaskets and a new clutch assembly. Those efforts resulted in the old girl “runnin’ like a saw” as Johnny Cash might say. Toss in a copious amount of pop rivets, some scrap steel, plastic roof cement and a cheap but decent set of 70 series 13″ radials and I had a great winter beater.
Best. Heater. Ever! Jump in, start up and more heat than you could stand in about 5 minutes. Never overheated in the summer, either. Sorry pops. I know you loved your VWs, but they could never match that.
It seems likely that Chrysler Corp. took offense to the B-210 Racer Bee, because of it’s similarity to their own Super Bee. Also, I always assumed that the Honey Bee was an upscale B-210, instead of a stripper, so I learned something today.
Hated seeing these when I grew up. Love seeing them now.
I had a puke-green ’78 hatchback “gifted” to me in the mid-80’s. Robust, harsh drivetrain. Rusted like a Vega, even in the south. Interior self-destructed, with that distinct Datsun smell.
According to the book “Nissan/Datsun A History of Nissan Motor Corporation in U.S.A, 1960-1980” (which actually covered Nissan history from 1913 to early 82 when it was written) a B210 in 1976 was the 2 millionth Datsun sold in the US. Keep an eye out for VIN# HLB210167304. Engine # 299376. It ended up at Arapahoe Datsun in Littleton CO and sold to a citizen of Denver (the book gives his name and address) on May 13th 1976. I also highly recommend the book written by John B. Rae.
That’s a great book — I read it last year for an article I wrote on a 200-SX, and it was full of outstanding information, not just on Datsun, but on the US small car market in general. Folks who have an interest in the history of Japanese cars should definitely check it out.
The seats from the Bit-O-Honey colored car are from a ’75-90 Ford Econoline.
That green four-door is in really amazing shape!
I was thinking it looked like a seat from an old boat.
I don’t understand the economics of these “strippers”.
If a company is making thousands and thousands of similar cars – don’t they have their parts supply and manufacturing down to a science?
So – wouldn’t removing content cost them time and money?
You are looking at it from the wrong side. It was not for the manufacturer to save money, rather they were models to penalize low cost buyers. By showing just what was NOT included, they caused a lot of folks to spend more to avoid the shame. Enthusiasts now seem to have a perpetual woody over a car with “radio delete” or similar, when in fact, the blanking plate was the company’s way of telling you what you were missing. Stripper models appealed to cheapskates, but cheapskates rarely buy new. Dealers bought them to advertise a low-price model and then “bait and switch” once the buyer got to the dealership and saw what was NOT included for that price. The cost for a blanking plate and NOT installing sold a lot more profitable options that otherwise would have not been purchased. We lost all of this as companies realized that economies of scale and packages made this thinking obsolete.
I would beg to differ. The Japanese never had stripper models until the mid 70s, and it was in response to the rapid inflation at the time. All manufacturers were struggling to avoid large price increases, and it was VW that started the pattern with their $2,999 Rabbit with cardboard door panels and such.
The B210 did not have a base/low end version (“stripper”) in 1974, but they did bring one in 1975, to keep the advertised price low. The Honey Bee package was just a striping package undoubtedly concocted by Datsun USA as a way to make the base sedan a bit perkier. One could buy the base sedan without the Honey Bee striping too.
But these stripper imports sold pretty well, because there were a lot of young baby boomers who were getting their first real jobs and needed reliable transportation. The options weren’t good, as most used cars were bigger American cars. So after the run-up in gas prices, cars like this had genuine appeal to young people who needed a basic set of wheels. It was analogue to the VW Beetle a few years back.
I am going to agree with you, but only as it pertains to the Japanese manufacturers. Decontenting a car saves a bit, and can lower the price of the car, but the overall cost per unit is still relatively the same. While a decontented car was a good choice in that specific time period, the general perception of imports was that they were cheap, and had few,if any, options. Imports were not considered to have any luxury items, they were considered penalty boxes that got good gas mileage. The genius of the Japanese was that they understood that offering what had been optional as standard increased perceived value at a rate higher than costs to produce. They figured out that equipping every car with an AM/FM radio, rather than standard AM with optional upgraded AM/FM brought the cost of the radio unit down to similar to the base AM only. The perceived value of the AM/FM made buyers happy with almost no change to cost. That rationale led to the idea of more standard features as opposed to myriad options, which led to greater production line efficiency. Less options means greater standardization, which increases the speed of assembly. The brief period of decontenting of these imports in the mid-70s was short.
I don’t follow when you say perceived value in this situation. When American cars of the era had to have so many boxes checked to become moderately equipped, the buyer of a Japanese car sees an advertised price, and doesn’t have to spend any extra. That’s actually real value to a consumer. No bait and switch tactics was a huge reason why Japanese cars took off in the early 1970’s. What you see is what you get to this day is a Honda hallmark within their trim lines.
At least, the practice of giving the decontented model a cute name, decals and an ad campaign was short-lived; after the 1978 redesign the B210 Honey Bee became the 210 Standard 2-Door Sedan and was lucky to get its’ picture in the brochure at the back of a group shot of the whole line. Same deal at Toyota. But the ultrastrippers remained on the books at least through the mid-’90s.
There are really three forms of stripper model, basic, low option, and penalty box, and yes they are different and can be broken down into eras.
Many if not most options we enjoy started life as accessories, ones that if not factory equipped could be added on to a model at a dealer or elsewhere using aftermarket components. A/C, cruise control, radios, gauges, and even dress up items. Things like these didn’t need bespoke dashboard pressings and the like, and if you bought a stripper without them, both you and the automaker were genuinely were saving money by keeping it basic. Cars from the earliest days to the 50s were basically like this. This is basically the cheap and cheerful execution – good car with less stuff.
There was(is) eventually transitional point, as the quest to better integrate these options/accessories required bespoke components like dashboards to have or omit additional vents and ducting, different instrument panels designed for few gauges and warning lights or multiple gauges, and door panels to be designed with or without winders for power windows. This adds greatly to manufacturing costs, and leaves a lot of room for QC error, but in the end your not going to be reminded about what you’re missing out on either if you don’t splurge. This was sort unique to the 60s-70s where take rates we’re sort of split.
After this you get into the rhealm of block off plates and decontenting, where the previously bespoke parts previously made for either configuration now becomes one part that works with the optioned configuration and can be blocked off or rendered useless with the stripper configuration. This happened in the 60s and 70s in certain instances (radio and clock deletes especially, and sometimes instrumentation) but really is most egregious from the 80s-present(late 90s – early 00s cars were the worst offenders IMO).
With the former two you may miss out on options, but since there is nothing to remind you of it, is it really a penalty box? The latter truly reminds you *something* should go here and there.
THe Japanese are masters at decontenting for the JDM they leave out anything not required by Japanese law and often fitted standard to export cars, like side intrusion bars and lately immobilisers making some ex JDM cars very easy to steal,Mazda Demios top the most stolen lists, Kids steal them for ram raids one to break in with and another for the getaway, if no Demios are parked handy An easy to steal Nissan Tiida will usually do.
They weren’t “removing” content; they just weren’t putting it into these cars. meaning parts that were not used, and that saved some money, obviously.
Thanks.
I guess the way I read it was that they were REPLACING a nicer bit of trim with something cheaper.
For example:
Trunk finisher: hardboard instead of laminated
So now instead of stocking just one part – you are stocking two.
Seem more expensive to me.
Stocking in the stateside spare-parts chain maybe, and in terms of two rather than one model of complete car. But JDM versions of the top-selling Sunny and Corolla came in upwards of a dozen trim levels and the export variants were concocted from different parts of those, so in pre-transplant days all the cheaper trim items were already in the supplier stream going to the factory.
These are still kind of exotic to me. When these were new they were certainly seen around the upper midwest, but were not owned by anyone I or my family knew. Folks in my part of the country dealt with the 1974 “energy crisis” (how funny that sounds now) by trading big Oldsmobiles and LTDs in for Novas and Pintos. The funny little Japanese cars were making inroads but were not considered “real cars” for another five years or so.
And by the time these would have been old enough to have proven themselves they had dissolved in the salt. It has to be one of the great fortunes of the Japanese auto industry that their early stuff came in on the west coast (where salt/rust is rare) and not on the east coast (where it is common). The western 1/3 of the US proved to be a great place for the underlying goodness of cars like this to come through so that their reputations could become established.
Those honeycomb hubcaps were very prone to curb rash. The ones on city cars were usually dented.
Call me crazy, but I like the instrument panel design of the B210. Curved toward the driver and definitely “styled.” Compared to the very staid Chevette instrument panel, for example, the Datsun feels a bit more interesting. So that may have been part of the charm–a bit of flair in an otherwise very cheap car.
There was a serious pandemic of these vile, indigestible prams in Oz. Most seemed to be baby poop yellow, and many were purchased, for full Laurel n’ Hardian effect, by tribes of the morbidly obese, (giving a new meaning to run-flats). Vague steering, hard ride with no damping, no room, vinyl coverings over army-surplus bedframes for alleged seats, wind noise, handling fit only for a glass-smooth parking lot up to 10km/h, offensively farty exhaust, pretty weak performance, sinful styling and mandatory option rust packs.
It is a matter of large frustration that they were exceptionally easy to drive, well finished, economical and, like the unflushable turd, kept coming back for more. For years and years.
I remember a journo here (Bill Tuckey) writing 35 years ago in astonishment that there was an Austin A30 club, saying that if such dire conveyances could attract members, then, why there’d be a club preserving Datsun 120Y’s in 2015. He meant this ironically.
It is not just now that it is common to poke fun at these cars for being shitful. It nearly always was.
Hadn’t heard that Tuckey story before but it is pretty funny. I don’t think there is a club and I can’t say that I have seen a restored car either; as opposed to preserved or perhaps even renovated ones purely being used for cheap transport.
I remember seeing a 2-door sedan like the featured car years ago and hearing a story about a batch of them landing in Australia instead of the original destination of maybe South Africa, because Nissan did not sell them here otherwise. The car was dry-stored and awaiting restoration, I’m not sure what ended up happening with it.
I saw a few around too, but the story of the wrong CKD package I always heard was of the not-unattractive 2-door hatchback versions of the execrable Stanzas.
Maybe you’re right about club membership. The Datsun Club Vic has a fairly decent joke on their FB page. “I lost my job in a computer store today. Guy came in asking if I could recommend a hard drive. I said, ‘Yeah, Brisbane to Perth in a 120Y’.”
Yeah I bought one in Hobart town, some dodgy bombs and rockets dealer out Moonah way pale yellow shitbox definitely but very little went wrong and it went everywhere though southern forest logging roads were a bit much for the primitive worn suspension, gpt $500 and a ride to Hobart for it when I went back to the other island.
Gawd, these things were everywhere in the ’80s and much uglier when ubiquitous than they are today. Then one day they all vanished. Perhaps it was durable but it certainly lacked comfort, beauty, and power. I have the two c/d econobox comparison tests from 1978 and this car placed dead last. At least the chevette was somewhat attractive. This atomic cockroach horror was cheap, flimsy feeling but durable, lined with cheap and ugly plastic, cramped, slow, and noisy. It makes one yearn for a boat Cadillac of the same year. I can see why us executives looked at these things and laughed. It’s amazing to think that the Sentra, which debuted in 1983 and a 1985 wagon version was featured here recently, was the successor only a few years separated. The Sentra had attractive styling, a cloth interior, was marginally more spacious, had a good bit more power and was light years a better car. How quickly cars evolved between 1973 and 1983!
Also I love prndl s story and agree with justy Baum. It’s a little bit like every good car is the same but every awful car is awful in its own way.
Thanks! 🙂
The late, great CC contributor Kevin Martin was also NOT a fan of the B-210. His outlook was different because his was purchased new so he got to watch it depreciate into tiny brown flakes.
Mine was bought as a total beater on the cheap. Except for the tires (which I removed and used on my next car) the total investment was probably about $800. Once sorted, I got about 2 years of economical, dependable service out of it.
It took a couple of tries to find it… Kevin’s B-210 story is contained in his “Cars of my Girlfriends” post:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-my-girlfriends-cars/
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I nearly bought an immaculate low-miler in the mid-’90’s when desperate for cheap wheels, exactly because it was 10c to fill it and no servicing would be fine. But it was a slovenly auto, and beyond hopeless, even at low speeds. As Kevin Martin said, “it was just crude.”
And, characteristic of his great writing, that’s the exact summary phrase, no more or less.
I remember the Atomic Cockroach tag for the fastback. Nissan would have a hard time selling a stripper like this today. However they were simple, durable and cheap to run. Fuel economy was perhaps three times better than most old American cars, even those equipped with sixes. Another factor that younger people are probably not aware of, is that credit was much harder to obtain back then. I think you needed too have a 20% deposit to buy a car, so low priced cars were really important for first time buyers.
Yes, and there were no 96 month loans in 1975.
they should call that 200SX the “Barbra Streisand Edition” – it’s that heinous-looking
just about the ugliest vehicle ever vomited out of a factory
In the above mentioned book is a chart that Nissan made in 1978 by contacting owners to see why they bought their cars. The only car to get a higher percentage of buyers for the “Styling” was the 280Z. The % was 280z- 35%…200SX- 30%. The next one WAS the B210 at 20%. So not everyone thought the 200 SX was ugly. At least not Nissan buyers.
In the back door/C-pillar area I see a lot of similarity between that (nice) green 4-door and the up-to-’17 Leaf.
Also, I’m gonna just leave this here:
[oops, that didn’t work, hang on]
Also, I’m gonna just leave this here:
That instantly came to my mind when I saw “racer bee”. Different missions, but the other parallel is the Super Bee was a stripper package as well, no way this was coincidence.
When I was a kid a friend’s dad had one of these in the exact color of the featured car. He later sold it to our neighbor across the street, who bought it for his teenage daughter to drive. When she upgraded to something better he, being something of a car hoarder, parked it behind his shed where it more than likely still languishes to this day.
IMHO one of the worst looking cars in fastback (hatchback?) trim.
A friend of mine had a blue GX hatchback like the one pictured. He was not a “car guy” by any stretch of the imagination and he abused the hell out of it. His idea of maintenance was to put fuel in the tank. He once told me he got pulled over by police while driving in downtown Seattle because his brake lights weren’t working. After a bit of back-and-forth with the cop, he was forced to admit there was nothing wrong with the brake LIGHTS. The real issue was the brakes weren’t working at all, and he was relying entirely on the handbrake to stop the car. He seemed somehow proud when he told me this. Sounds like a tall tale, but from what I knew of the guy, there is probably some truth to the story. Me, on the other hand? My first car was a used orange 75 B210 hatchback, and I treated that ugtastic beast like a queen for the five or so years that I had it.
Paul-
The CC effect strikes again- Last night i was driving home form work and caught an image out of the corner of my eye. I thought to myself, “Was that a Datsun B210 with an opera window?”
After seeing your article I went back and checked, and as the photo shows, it is indeed a B210 with broughamification. While it appears to be near the end of its life-cycle, we’ve captured it here for posterity.
Wow! An opera window on one of them? It’s obviously a backyard job, but not an easy one; someone sure was determined!
I kinda wonder whether some of the body’s structural integrity has been lost with that slight attempt at broughamification – after all, there wasn’t a whole lot to start with….
Great find! A Brougham Bee; a very rare model indeed.
In 1977 my Dad bought a used ’74 hatchback for my brothers and I to use. Orange paint with black interior and the 4 speed transmission. We installed an AM/FM stereo radio and a pair of speakers in the rear side panels… good to go! Of course, “go” is a relative term. You could flog that little warthog as if you were in a race and still rarely exceed a speed limit.
On the other hand, I drove it from New England to northern Indiana for a summer engineering job, averaging 44mpg. Ideal for a poor college student!
I knew a guy with a professional carpet cleaner van and the cleaner was powered by one these A engines. They are tiny engines, hard to tell from the posted pics.
Forced into one as a rental over in Hawaii back in 1979. Worst car I’ve ever driven.
Yep, my aunt and uncle had one of these, in this exact “honey” color. They were both drivers of large four-door hardtops, but only after the second energy crisis did they decide to try to save some money. My cousin ended up driving it for a while after he got his license, and I remember it as just unpleasant to ride in.
I like mine!
The B210 was cheap and reliable transportation for lots of folks.
I had the chance to ride in a few of them when I was a young kid and they seemed no a miserable shitbox then my dad’s 1980 Toyota Tercel was.
Besides a humble 1975 Datsun 210(also called 120Y) caused Victoria Australia to have to refund A$26 Million due to a faulty speed camera. This camera clocked a 1975 Datsun 120Y going 98 when the car was not capable of doing more then 73 when new.
I bought a four door 120Y in pale yellowin 97, went all over Tasmania in it including the logging roads in the Huon valley beat it pretty hard for 5,000 kms in six weeks it was still running ok when sold, nothing much to drive in the usual 70s Japanese style but it was rust free and reliable, Very few left in NZ in original condition our biannual inspections and rust has put them into the crusher.
I love that Datsun was able to give a stripper model a real dose of personality and identity, in the Honey Bee. When I was a kid, any car with a cartoon mascot or tie-in (the Honey Bee, Plymouth Volaré Road Runner, etc.) was automatically likable.
I think the Bit-O-Honey metaphor was apt as those candies (like the B210) were an acquired taste for me, often sitting at the bottom of my Halloween candy bag until little else was left. I like them now.
CC Effect … I saw a gold B210 hatch today, on the road, first one I’ve seen in eons.
For me, this is another one of those cars that I intensely disliked when I was younger, but have grown to appreciate over the years as a fine example of the Japanese Weird school of design. And the condition of that green sedan! Truly remarkable.
I’ve not seen one on the road in a long, long time.
The B210,s are still alive and there are still a few around. In fact I have one I am going to refurbish in the near future. It is a driver and in fairly decent shape.
I had a 79 210, reliable, slow, tinny. Mint green. Had to keep the heater on to avoid overheating. In Florida. In summer. great days
There was a SSS model here as there had been for the previous model Datsun 1200, the engines of that were modified prior to installation by a well known Hillman/Humber 80 tuner and racer and were quite a quick little car on the rally scene, prized today there are very few left
My dad has a 76 honey bee in the garage awaiting restoration. It was parked in 1983 and has only 6k miles on it.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. My parents owned a 1974 Chevy Monza…silver, V8, everything a teenager in southern California could ask for. Then, suddenly, they traded it for a 1977 green Datsun B210 hatchback. Honeycomb wheel covers, 5 speed manual transmission, black interior. And when I turned 16 in 1978, that became my car and I had it through my first years of college. Superb drifting capabilities…always pulled out of a slide when I counter-steered. An anti-chick magnet…but with the best sound system I could buy. “Even the Losers” by Tom Petty never sounded so good…
I’ve yet to find that exact color of green anywhere in nature…must have been a Datsun original.
You’re a nerd – Swede
You know me all too well Swede. But the ’66 convertible Mustang is a significant upgrade from the B210 – if only I had that in high school! And stop asking if it runs…you know it does.
In the 70s I was one of those kids bombing around in a hotrod Datsun 510, obviously didn’t think too highly of the 210 lineup.
In Canada in earlier 1980s Nissan offered B210 owner great trade-in deals to get cars off the road. This car was such a fast ruster that many were not safe on road at year 5.
Many good personal memories of these! I want that green 4 dr !!!
If you ever meet the owner, Paul, let him know he has a buyer!
One of my sister’s co workers got the green “tudor” version of that sedan you chronicled. I believe it was a “75ish”.
She got it new.
I really liked the “fastback”.
After being in the “F10”, though, I realized how cool they were.
Saw a nice one(F10) on a used car lot in “85”. Had no “a/c”.
My first car was a 78 B210, which I purchased very cheap in the mid-80s. The midwestern winters were not kind on the car. It was ugly, uncomfortable, and undependable. Spewed blue smoke. But I loved it for a couple of years. I think the junk yard offered me $50 for it in 88 or 89. My second car was a 79 or 80 VW rabbit, which was also quite rusty, but so much more practical and fun to drive.
As a fan of the slightly earlier 510 and 1200, I was aghast at the B210. I guess it was needed both for a new model and safety etc standards, but it sure looked worse along with being slower.
Regardless, the Honey Bee. Stripper without a pole. I guess every little bit of decontenting helps lower the price, but a door pull rather than a armrest/pull? How much did that really save, or was it just punishment?
Believe it or not (hmm…), I saw the green sedan driving in West Eugene yesterday, I’m car shopping and drove down to look at a Subaru.
Weird cheap tinny cars that were dependable. Narrow and uncomfortable with a punishing ride. Considering the competition at the time, it was a real option. The 1970s were strange times indeed.
Didn’t have a B210, but a 1974 Datsun 710 was my first car. Mine didn’t have much equipment but it did have a rear defroster, and what I think was non-color-coordinated carpeting…it was brown, the seats were white vinyl, and the exterior was a medium blue.
Even back then imports were better equipped than most domestics, this honey bee is probably the exception to that. Still, they “bragged” about some pretty minor things being standard…radial tires AM radio (mine didn’t have any radio though) rear defroster antenna (mine also had one parallel to the A pillar even with no radio). No tachometer though, I wonder when (and why) tachometers have become almost a given instrument on vehicles even though manual transmissions are almost extinct (I know tachometers have a use on automatics but seems really odd to me that back 50 years ago when manual transmissions were much more common on this class vehicle, almost no inexpensive car came with one…maybe the 240Z, but it was a sports car, not an economy car.
Still the modest equipment sufficed for me anyhow. At least it came with a spare tire and lock cylinders on front doors and the trunk…many cars now only have driver’s door lock cylinder if that, and many don’t have a spare. I’d rather forgo the radio and any wood trim plus power locks to get the lock cylinders (at least for the trunk) and spare tire…though I know the latter is more often left out due to weight more so than cost.
Still, looking at the equipment deletion list from 50 years ago, deleting arm rests and rear seat seems pretty extreme to me to cut cost.
My 710 was utterly conventional, which (other than lack of FWD which I could have used living in the north country as I did back then) was a good thing, it needed regular maintenance like tune-ups but nothing very complicated went wrong while I owned it…which as an undergraduate I appreciated. I did take it on some longer trips, to my Grandparents in Pennsylvania, and to job interviews in Massachusetts but otherwise it was used for my commutes, to school and to my work, and the only time it didn’t start was the week during the blizzard of ’78 despite always being parked outside, in Vermont.
I sold my 710 in ’81 to buy a FWD car….had I known I’d be moving to central Texas in a couple of years I might have just as well kept it…it lacked air conditioning, of course, but even the car I bought in ’81 didn’t have that and I suffered in the heat without it a few more years (till ’86)