“Overstyled” is a bit of an understatement, but ironically enough, the F-10’s styling was actually just some three or four decades ahead of the curve. High belt line: check. Small windows: check. Sloping rear deck with poor visibility: check. Overwrought bulging head lights: check. FWD: check. Overwrought tail lights: check.
Finding an F-10 coupe in Eugene was one of my early thrills, and I wrote it up here.
There may be others that are even closer, but here’s what comes to mind in terms of it’s stylistic counterpart today.
Can’t help but think about the Hyundai Velox’s left side… couldn’t find a photo of a blue one, but still
Gosh, an engine, a transmission, a radio,I love it!
“Off-road looking” ride height: check.
I’m not sure of the etymology for the term “overstyled”, but I can understand its intent, not to mention it’s application to the F10 – as well as 210, 710 and decades later the Murano and Juke. But I prefer to think of the F10 as being understyled, as in lacking any style that I could appreciate. Then or now.
The F10 manages to looks just a horrendous today as it did forty years ago. Murano and Juke are beauty queens by comparison.
I think the term that best describes how these look is “butt ugly”. These were fairly thick on the ground when I lived in California (mid 1975-early 1979) because they were relatively inexpensive and Datsun had a good reputation regarding reliability. I was new car shopping in 1978 and briefly drove an F10; this was many years ago but I seem to remember it as being fairly well made but rather slow. I ended up buying a VW Rabbit which was quite a bit more expensive but was much more satisfying to drive. I haven’t seen an F10 on the road in a long, long time.
Which is why I never bought any Datsuns way back when. Stayed with the Euro’s even though they rusted and broke….
Recalling a cross country trip with 3 awol sailors, and 2 runaways from Omaha in a yellow F-10. My apologies to t he Navy recruiter who consigned my check for tires and muffler. 40 years ago…
Both the F10 and Prius look science fiction inspired.
Dystopian science fiction.
Perhaps it’s more that the ‘modern’ stuff is 45 years behind the times in being over-wrought and tacky. Cars looked more cleanly modern in 2000.
Some love for the F-10:
In the late 70s Datsun kicked in with a tremendous variety.
After great success with the 510, bargain-1200, and “Fairlady” (!) sports car; now there was a 610, 710, 810 (became the Maxima), and all manner of (240, 260 & 280) Z’s
There were 2 & 4-drs, wagons, a pick-up. ……. and a little front driver, the F-10.
Hey, at least all four windows rolled down. How long has it been since the (remaining) makers of fixed-roof two-door cars included rear quarter windows that opened at all? (The only benchmark I can think of in that regard is the Honda Civic; flip-outs were standard on two-door Civics only through 1991 and then became unavailable. Also, the Acura Legend coupe produced through 1995 had quarter windows that rolled down. Was that the last such car?)
The Mercedes E-Class coupe allows you to.
It looked a bit like contemporary Subaru coupes.
I thought they were ugly then, and nothing as changed in that regard.
Yep- unspeakably ugly. Then and now.
I didn’t think the F10 looked that bad, especially the wagon, compared to Subies of the time. There was a lot of questionable styling coming out of the Pac rim at that time, like the Mazda RX3 and RX4, and almost everything in the Datsun line. The 76 Accord was a standout, not only for what was under the skin, but the skin itself, which was quite pleasing for an Asian car of the time.
High belt line: check. Small windows: check. Sloping rear deck with poor visibility: check.
Bad ideas never seem to go away. They are recycled again and again.
The first Accord was really new in ’76 and marked a turning point away from a few years of frumpy Japanese designs; of course, existing models like the Subaru which didn’t get a clean sheet until 1980 and the already-5-year-old-at-US launch F-10 had some years left to play out.
It’s remarkable that the same company which produced the 240Z (Fairlady indeed) could come up with this! “Under-styled” is an understatement. It might be safe to say the Pontiac Aztek was the ugliest car since the Datsun F10.
It is, aside from Subaru, one of the earliest FWD Japanese automobiles I can recall. Also, like the Aztek it is a functional design – credit FWD and the unusual rear hatch.
It’s remarkable that the same company which produced the 240Z (Fairlady indeed) could come up with this!
These Datsun 1200s were all over campus in the mid 70s. I always thought them rather agreeable. It’s like all the stylists in Japan went up in the mountains together and went on some terrible acid trip in the mid 70s.
Toyota/Lexus stylists must have gotten some of that same old acid not so long ago.
The 1200’s were pleasant, but soon after Datsun went berserk. Started a 40+ year Toyota preference….
One of the reasons I was slow to warm up to Japanese cars in the 70s.
I can’t bring myself to hate it, but some cars are just timelessly ugly, and this is one.
I always thought that the basic shape was decent/barely acceptable, but what ruined this car was the headlight treatment, the uninspiring wheelcovers, and the tailights that were nearly as big as the headlights. Then there was that huge slab of grey plastic surrounding the licence plate in the back.
I agree, NOT overstyled but consciously lacking in a cohesive style. Every facet of the car seems to have been randomly selected.
Wheelcovers – The covers that were supposed to snap over the balls @ the ends of the wheel studs? Whether it was too difficult to get all 4 snapped on or if it was just amusing, lots of these were off-center & added to the silliness of seeing one of these going down the road.
Indeed, the huge headlight bezels remind me, a lot, of the ones on the old 1962 Plymouth Fury. OTOH, the F10 doesn’t really have the rest of the ‘dumbbell’ front end that Plymouth (and some Dodges) toned down a bit after ’62 but still continued with for at least a decade back in the day.
But, still, there is definitely a resemblance to the original 1962 car.
But the ’62 Fury, one of my all-time favorites, had big round bezels around the round headlights, and small round taillights. The circles work with the wheels and hubcaps to give a sense of smooth motion.
The Datsun has big hexagons with rounded corners front and rear, not the same at all. Never looked right to me, then or now.
If side-by-side photos are viewed, even with hexagon versus round shapes, they look more similar than different.
Gawd, what an ugly car. I cannot think of an attractive Japanese car from the 70’s but this and the b210 were really eye watering. A whole lot of styling slathered over a tiny car with gobs of cheap plastic inside and out does not make an attractive car. The Vega and monza may have been horrible cars but they were nice to look at while you were waiting for a tow truck.
Just think how much the automotive market had progressed by 1981. In five short years, very little that was around in 1976 still existed in its 1976 form. The new Chrysler in 1976 was the volare Aspen, the new Chrysler in 1981 was the k car. This car was replaced by an only a little ugly 310 with a fwd Sentra about to debut, the escort replaced the pinto, the omnirizon was well established, gms full size cars had been successfully downsized and again refreshed as well as its mid sizers and the x car was racking up record sales. More change happened between 1976 and 1981 than in the last 15-30 years, in my opinion.
“attractive Japanese car from the 70’s”
These F10s always struck me as unusual, but never bothered me. The overall design—eh! It was and is of its time. I find it a great deal less offensive than the vomit-on-wheels bloatmobiles like that ’77 Cougar I was bellyaching about the other day on here or the ’71-’76 GM B-bodies, and also less ugly than a fair number of other Datsuns and Toyotas of that timeframe.
I like the prominently rounded-hexagonal taillamps, and while the headlamps might’ve matched (and thus been better-looking) if exclusive-in-the-US, extensive-in-Japan use of sealed beams hadn’t precluded composite lamps, the bezels at least hint at front/rear congruence. The basket-handle effect is, I think, carried off in more pleasing fashion here than in the bigger Ford efforts. I agree the pinched-up greenhouse is a funny-lookin’ functional zero, and I see more than an echo of it in the recent Kia Optima:
When they were new, I thought these made even the B210 look good.
O, the Prius is certainly ugly, but Honda has the hr-v, the Civic, the Accord is still questionable to me, and the Odyssey are all eye wateringly ugly. Nissan is trying but Honda is stomping them flat in the ugly car wars.
It doesn’t look bad from the doors forward. I think if that rear hatch and glass were cut deeper into the body it would have been much better. From my understanding the rear side glass rolled down for rear seat passengers – three cheers for that!
The fact that the small rear windows rolled down (and it’s not even a hardtop!) is more than enough for me to give the F10 a pass on its polarizing appearance.
It even kind of looks like the solid trim piece ‘behind’ the rear windows flips out as an added vent! The F10 might have been goofy looking, but at least if you were confined to the rear seat, you had a decent chance for some ventilation. Compare that with the downsized 1978 Malibu 4-door with the fixed rear door glass.
An aquaintance had one of these in the mid 80’s. I remember him leading the way to the beach one day hot-rodding around in his quirky Datsun trying his best to out run me. Not possible in my 77 civic. He was so upset that he couldn’t shake the lttle blue Honda. I would let him get ahead and quickly reel him in. He was the only guy I have ever known who had an eating disorder. He was in a “Corn Flakes” phase as his family put it. There were many phases apparently. Every time I see a picture of one of these I am remided of the weirdo and his weird car. I got to ride in it once and the whole time it was “stop this ride I want off” The whole family was weird. Each one as quirky as the next and not in a good way either. I am shuddering right now.
The Italians have a cookie called “Brutti ma Buoni,” translated as “Ugly but Good;” which I think would be a good description for these. Of course, I do have a soft spot for these cars, as I spent the Summer of 1982 riding around a big chunk of the West and Canada in one. I couldn’t do justice to the story of what was a true odyssey here, but I do remember that little Datsun doing everything we asked of it and more-as an uncle of mine would have said, it was our “war pony;” hunchback, bug-eyes and all.
Looking at the sedan model, I see a fair good bit of first-generation Nissan Leaf in the rear half:
Good Lord! There was a sedan version of the F10? I can’t un-see it…
FWIW, the LTDII/Cougar from 77 to 79 may have been space inefficient, a gas hog and generally cheap, but it was nowhere near as ungainly as the F10. At least there was a styling continuity between the intermediate Ford products, not these random collections of shapes and designs. People complain about the Aztek being designed by two different committees, but clearly the five different committees working on the F10 were not on speaking terms.
Ok, I liked them back then, because they were so unique looking. And I liked the 70’s Subaru’s, too, for the same reason. What I hated about the F-10 was the stupid wheel trims. Plain steelie’s would have looked better.
Well, you should have met my Dad then…he cross shopped one of these in 1976, and ended up with…a 1976 Subaru DL (FWD, Automatic (for my Mom))…
I had a ’74 Datsun 710 at the time, and of course front wheel drive was still unusual (I think this was the first Datsun offered with FWD at least in the US?).
We lived in Vermont back then, so FWD was attractive to us….I ended up sliding my 710 into a cable guardrail a few years later after hitting a patch of black ice on I89 just before the Sharon exit…it was of course a light car with RWD. Got it fixed up, but didn’t keep it long as I was shopping for a FWD car as I made that trip often while my parents still lived in Vermont, and I in Massachusetts.
The sad thing about my Dad not buying the F10(maybe shows our taste) was we weren’t put off so much by the styling as by a small vent on the hood, and as I recall a small electric fan…looked like someone added an engineering change to it (maybe to help with carburetor icing?). We didn’t know anything about Subaru, but did like Datsun back then, but my Father ended up going to Winooski and bought the Subaru instead.
Now Subarus are very popular, but no one in my family has bought one since then (guess we’re one of the few Subaru owners never to have had all wheel drive…but we no longer live in Vermont either). On the other hand, between my 2 youngest sisters, they’ve owned a total of 4 240SX Nissans …my middle sister still owns her ’98 (bought new) that people keep wanting to buy from her. I on the other hand went to VW after that Datsun 710…on my 3rd one, haven’t owned any other marque since 1981 (and all are manual…including my current 18 year old Golf…I tend to keep cars a long time).
One of the ladies I worked with on my 1st job out of college lived in the same apartment complex as I did, we often carpooled to work, and her car back then was the successor to this model…a 1979 Datsun 710 2 door coupe…she called it “Florence”…Florence did look a bit better than the F10, but (in my opinion) was not nearly as nice looking as the car I drove for the carpool…my 1978 VW Scirocco…the first VW I owned.
Me in 1977: My God that is hideous. Me today: Ditto. Reminds me of my reaction the first time I saw an Aztek in person.
I will give it one hat tip though – I wish there were more wheel styles like the F10’s available these days.
Unfortunately a lot of the latest Honda, Toyotas, Kias and others are returning to, in my opinion, the ugly sculptured look in their current styling whether it be cars or SUVs. Reminds me of the 1975 Ford Gran Torino someone in my family once had. A lot of wasted space in terms of just styling and also made for poor visability. Another vintage 1978 was also as ugly is the 200SX as shown in the picture. More of the classic ugly sculptured styling. Always liked cars withe more upright lines like 1970s Dodge Darts or my current Kia Soul. More practical, less wasted space, great visibility, and sensible. Also they don’t need the new back up cameras that new cars need. I miss the the days when it used to be “hip to be square” in terms of car styling. Somehow the styling of these cars reminded me of the old Japanese monster movies of the 1960s and 1970s. Not too well done!
F10: dorky, need I say more…
I find it hard to hate these little boogers. They appeal to me in the same sort of way a Pacer, Nissan Cube or Latest Prius-with-the-wacky-taillights does. Attractive? Not to me, but the it’s hard not to appreciate the unique vibe these things exude. Datsun should have applied these 210 wheel covers to this model though — they certainly “go with” the taillights and would make it look less “cheap” to me.
My first car at 16 years old was a 1976 Datsun F10. It was a lemon. Gas tank air pressure issues caused it to stall then woundnt restart until it wanted to. Created huge problems in traffic. Cheap ignition and steering wheel lock.
I had a ‘77 F-10, it had no a/c even as an option, the radio was an AM/FM. Notice I didn’t say stereo, it came with only one speaker in the dash. It had to be warmed up for a little while in the winter, probably normal in those days. Nobody ever said anything to me about it’s looks, but there were many quirky looking cars around in those days. I agree however, it was ugly. Oh, one more thing. When I was in college about 1981-1982 I was looking at an engineering magazine in a bookstore near campus. It actually had a centerfold page inside; it was a photo of a “design disaster of the month”. It was the Datsun F-10.