(first posted 1/26/2018) Sit back and relax. Get something to drink. Take the weekend if you need to. This is going to take a while. For your reading pleasure, here is the comprehensive comparison test of leading imported economy cars, as conducted by Road Test Magazine in the April 1968 issue. In fact, at 54 pages, it basically is the whole issue of the magazine. Covered are the Datsun 510, Fiat 124, Ford Cortina, Opel Kadett, Renault 10, Simca 1000, Toyota Corona and VW Beetle. Read on to see how Road Test evaluated the cars, and which ones they picked as the winners.
Each of the cars tested sold for around $2,000 ($14,459 adjusted), making them all true entry-level cars. While the most basic AMC Rambler American started at that price point, the cheapest offerings from the Big Three came in about $200 higher ($1,446 adjusted).
Engineering ranged from the archaic (VW) to the mundane (Opel, Toyota) to a budget-priced sophisticate (Datsun). While packaging was often very good for the overall vehicle size, certain cars, like rear-engine rear-wheel-drive Simca, had suspension designs that resulted in suboptimal (and potentially dangerous) handling for the average driver.
Each of these cars was designed for economy, not scintillating performance. While Road Test claimed that the cars could keep pace with American freeway traffic, the performance results tell a rather pokey story: the quickest car took 19 seconds to get through the quarter mile, and the highest quarter mile top speed was 71 mph (both for the Datsun). The slowest of the slow was the clutches bug. The semi-automatic transmission definitely wasn’t a good fit for the VW: that car was 2 seconds slower in the quarter mile than the manual, requiring a 22.49 seconds for the run.
Disc brakes were standard on several cars in the test, an important and technically advanced (for the time) safety feature–especially for such low-priced machines. The coming years would see widespread adoption of discs. However, front engine designs would soon win out over the rear engine layout for economy cars. Plus, front wheel drive would take over as well within the next decade, leading to far better packaging and benign, predictable handling.
Given their overall size, the cars were quite well packaged. Certain domestic cars were far larger yet couldn’t offer much more in the way of usable interior room and luggage capacity. Surprisingly, seat comfort was also praised on several of the cars, and in some cases (like Renault) the seats were arguably better than those found in larger, more expensive domestic compacts.
What happened to the commentary on Simca, you ask? I have no idea! I even double-checked the issue to make sure I wasn’t missing any pages. For whatever reason, Road Test just didn’t write-up anything on the Simca’s comfort and convenience, just as they barely covered the Simca’s performance and braking. Mon Dieu!
It’s interesting to note the progress that has been made in fuel economy since 1968. These low-end, low-powered, lightweight cars were by far the most fuel efficient on the market at the time, yet the mileage results wouldn’t even be considered particularly good for one of today’s mid-size sedans with ample pick-up.
Not surprisingly, Volkswagen scored well in overall ownership costs, based in large part on strong resale values. Toyota, however, was already coming on strong in 1968 and was holding its value well and building a good reputation for quality and dependability.
Road Test had a lot of love for the Renault, but those feelings weren’t matched by marketplace performance. Renault only sold a grand total of 21,662 cars in the U.S. for 1968, just a smidgen ahead of the Ford Cortina’s 21,496 sales. Fiat, RT‘s second place finisher, didn’t do much better, with 30,521 U.S. sales.
The next three finishers on Road Test’s list were also among the best selling U.S. imports: Datsun retailed 58,467, Toyota sold 71,463, and champion Volkswagen sent over a whopping 582,009 (no wonder Detroit was beginning to pay attention). However, unlike VW, Datsun and Toyota focused on making their cars more useful and suitable for American tastes. That devotion to meeting customer needs, coupled with their high quality, would soon see both brands eclipse the German wunder-car.
Despite significant handicaps, like an unexceptional product and indifferent sales and service through Buick dealers, Opel still delivered 84,680 cars stateside. I still wonder how things could have turned out differently if General Motors had better Americanized the product and sold it through Chevrolet dealers–it might have allowed GM to more effectively fight back the import challenge and could have avoided the Vega debacle. Ah well, missed opportunities are so easy to see in the rearview mirror….
And then there’s last-place Simca, the odd stepchild in the Mopar stable. Not only did Road Test virtually ignore the rear-engined French product for big sections of the test, I’m not even able to find any data for U.S. Simca sales from my usual Standard Catalog of Imported Cars. However, Simca does deserve credit for the car described (but not tested) in the sidebar on page 21 and copy on page 22: the 1100 was in fact a very modern design that established parameters for future FWD econoboxes.
So there you have it: extensive coverage (save for Simca) of leading small imported economy cars in the U.S. market. Try for a moment to go back in time and forget what you know about how these cars/brands did in later years, and think which one would have been your pick if you were buying this type of car back in 1968. For me, the choice would have been the Datsun, as it offered a good blending of international small car attributes in a handsome little package.
What would your pick have been?
UPDATE: The missing Simca has been found! Sharp-eyed J P Cavanaugh opined that Road Test may not have even actually driven the Simca 1000 for this comparison, since the new Simca 1100 was on the horizon. Well sure enough, I think the Simca 1000 that made it into a few of the pictures, and formed the basis for the commentary on the Simca, was actually a car they tested back in 1967! That’s right, the February 1967 issue of Road Test Magazine had been devoted to comparing the economy imports, just like the April 1968 issue. In 1967, the cars covered were the Datsun 410, Fiat 124, Fiat 600, Fiat 1100, Ford Anglia, Ford Cortina, MG 1100, Opel Kadett, Renault 10, Simca 1000 (the missing car from the 1968 comparison!) and Toyota Corona. Typical Road Test gaffes aside, the 1967 comparison looks to be a great read with a lot of detail as well. So, look for a post of the 1967 Economy Import Comparison next Friday for a follow-up, long-form read to take you into next weekend!
This article is an example of why “Road & Track” was always supplemented by “Car & Driver” magazine in our household; from the 1960’s thru the late 1990’s.
R&T’s top two choices (Renault and Fiat) were good on paper, but lousy choices out in “The Real World”. These two cars’ reliability, quality control and longevity (of lack thereof) made them long term ownership nightmares.
As I recall, C&D had less glowing words about these two cars.
R&T always seemed to love quirky, unreliable, terrible quality control foreign cars that sold poorly away from the east or west cost port cities. Perhaps “fun” cars for putt-putting around Newport Beach, CA (R&T’s home base) at an annual rate of 3 or 4K per years; but not so much fun in Kansas or Nebraska.
Based on long term, Real World “livability”; my choice would had been either a 4 speed Datsun or a 4 speed Toyota.
I think part of the reason Renault and Fiat did so well is because they were perceived as being “real cars” with some history of success, where the Japanese cars were real unknown quantities at the time.
Perhaps I am projecting but I think that with the new-ness of the Japanese stuff (especially with “made in Japan” having been synonymous with cheap junk in the not too distant past) was sort of like how long it took the motoring press to take Hyundai and Kia seriously in recent years.
Hindsight, of course, tells us that this was the beginning of the great European small car flame-out in the US.
RT obviously had a bit of a crush on the R10. It’s somewhat understandable, as it really did have some good qualities. In this C&D comparison of the R10 and VW, the Renault was the clear winner: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/vintage-reviews/vintage-cd-road-test-comparison-1967-renault-10-and-vw-1500-renaults-last-shot-at-the-beetle/
But I think they failed to see that its qualities were not likely to be appreciated by the typical American buyer.
I don’t think that fear of “Made in Japan” was at all relevant by this time nor raised its head in this comparison. In fact they clearly state that Japanese cars increasingly have been appreciated for their quality in the US, and specifically pointed out that the Toyota Corona enjoyed a high resale specifically for this reason.
This isn’t from Road & Track; it’s from Road Test magazine.
Mark reimer:
The article here is from ROAD TEST, and not Road &Track.
As I started reading, my first thought was how the line up at dealers for each brand would change in such a short time….except, perhaps at Toyota and Datsun.
As I read, I was surprised by many of the results. For example, the 510’s top speed of only 71 in the quarter mile seems ridiculous in light of today’s speeds.
I’m not really all that surprised by the fuel economy numbers. Carburetors aren’t all that efficient at metering fuel compared to fuel injection.
And finally, Opel and Ford moved nearly as many cars as Toyota?
Ahhh….you are quite correct. My apologies for (once again) posting here before my morning cawfee kicks in.
R&T did some remarkably similar in their group road tests of this time period.
Thanks for pointing out my inefficiency.
The Opel and Ford Cortina were sold through Buick and Ford dealers, respectively, which meant that they were sold throughout the nation. Our local Buick dealer in Chambersburg, Pa., carried Opels during this time, as did the Buick dealers in Harrisburg.
Toyota and Datsun were still building their dealer networks during this time, so their sales were heavily based in the coastal regions.
Opel was the #2 import brand in 1968, but Toyota passed them in 1969, IIRC.
Yes, Mark Reimer confused ROAD TEST with Road and Track. Different publications.
Wow, GN – this is going to take a little time, more than I have now.
My initial impression is that this was a really wide-open time in that segment, and the European cars had the upper hand in terms of familiarity, in most cases.
GM and Ford’s approaches were fascinating – GM gave us stuff from their German Division. Those Opels were not bad cars, it was exchange rates that killed them later. Ford went with their English Division. The Cortina should have been a hit here but wasn’t. I experienced one of those (owned by my scoutmaster who was a high school chemistry teacher) and it was literally breaking and falling apart after two years. Such a shame because that little maroon wagon was so attractive.
On the Simca, I would guess that there was not a car available for the actual test. In the engineering segment it was mentioned that the new FWD 1100 was coming mid year. It is amazing that between Simca, Rootes and Mitsubishi Chrysler could never really get a decent foothold in that market until the 1978 homegrown Horizon/Omni.
With hindsight we can see how the Japanese companies gave us the quality everyone was used to from VW but a modern car to go along with it.
The Dodge Colt sold reasonably well. The son of our next-door neighbor bought a brand-new “Carousel” edition in the mid-1970s.
It was the Plymouth Cricket that turned out to be a disaster. Our neighbors bought a brand-new one in 1971 from the local Chrysler-Plymouth dealer. It was replaced by a used, mint 1967 Rambler Rebel 550 four-door sedan!
A friend’s father bought a Cricket back then thinking it was a Japanese import. Surprise! (It was a disaster.)
Just as many bought Yugos, under the assumption, “it has to be a good car, it’s imported!’.
It is a shame, but by around 1970 there seemed to be no small English car that stood up to US conditions very well. Both Ford (Cortina) and Plymouth (Cricket) gave their respective English brands a good chance but neither did well here at all. It would have taken a really stout English car to crack the market here by then and neither seems to have been that. Which is a shame because both of them should have been viable small cars to represent their respective brands.
The Cortina of my experience was just brittle. Things broke on that car the didn’t break on US stuff – like a wiper arm and a shift lever that each snapped off. My scoutmaster shifted the Cortina with a pair of Vice Grip pliers clamped onto the little 2 inch shifter stub. And the hydraulic clutch leaked so that a refil and a lot of clutch pumping was necessary after the car was parked at camp for a week. All on a 2 year old car. Of course, the US companies were not likely to put much effort into this class because they didn’t want to bother with the low end. The Japanese saw these cars as worthy in and of themselves and the cars were good. Ford and Chrysler saw these as necessary evils and the cars were not. And when the cars were bad by Ford and Chrysler standards of the early 70s, this is saying something.
There’s a British sit com called “Keeping up Appearances”. One set of characters is a lower class family who have an old Hillman Avenger [Cricket] in front of their place, that looks like hasn’t moved in years. It’s used as an establishing shot when story cuts to them.
The same family drives a Ford Cortina, IIRC, it’s a 3rd generation Cortina….the one that replaced the car tested here.
Hyacinth and her much-put-upon husband drive a Rover 216 Mark I, which is based on the 1984-87 Honda Civic sedan.
Their Cortina always backfires and belches smoke whenever they come to a stop. Love that show!
4th gen. 1976-79, where the Taunus and Cortina models looked exactly the same (though it was effectively a heavy revamp of the previous 1970-76 Taunus body).
JP, in regards to your scoutmaster’s Ford, I remember my parents telling me the prevailing sentiment at the time was something to the effect of, “well, if you bought a new GM or Ford and it broke after 2 years, they all did that; but if your import did the same, that was your fault for buying one of those weird foreign jobs.”
There’s some truth to that. The memory is sketchy now, but my mother had a ’64 Rambler American that had a major rear end problem that caused it to be replaced by a 67 Camaro. That in turn had an engine failure that led to a 1970 Cortina, which lasted 6 years without catastrophe.
Jim I think you nailed it on Simca! It hadn’t even occurred to me that Road Test would serve up a comparison test without actually driving all the cars together–but I think that is exactly what they did! D’oh!!!!
Also, I still cannot fathom how GM and Ford so thoroughly botched their potential for success in this segment. The European Opel and Ford products were pretty good–certainly more modern than VW. Shame about the build quality and lack of a decent automatic–that’s of course what the Japanese did get right: well made small cars for American tastes.
Both the Opel and Ford looked attractive as “mini-Americans” but were then sold as “foreign.” I think “English Ford” was a complete non-starter for most Ford buyers who wanted a “‘Murican Ford,” and dealers didn’t want to fool with it. Likewise, other than Cadillac showrooms, I can’t think of a worse place to market Opels than a Buick dealer. That was about the LAST place economy buyers would think to look for a car. Plus, once again, I’m sure most Buick dealers hated the hassle of dealing with Opels. For both the Ford and Opel, being set-up and marketed properly (“real” Ford and Opel at Chevy stores badged as a Chevy–both with the option of an automatic transmission), I think the market would have evolved very differently. Even with dubious quality of the English Ford and Opel (not that American Fords and Chevrolets were much better….), the sheer volume of Ford and Chevy dealers pushing these cars could have made all the difference.
Opels should have been available to any GM dealer wiling to sell them, not forced on Buick. Or better, as Chevy’s entry car.
Then again, there’d been no Opel GT in the US, if Chevy had their say.
The Kadett was a bit of a tin can; it was designed for minimum production cost, and was quite primitive as a consequence. Its leaf spring rear end rightfully came in for plenty of criticism, as it was quite easy to roll the car in certain maneuvers. In fact, a new coil spring rear end replaced it just around this time. And thta led to the famous Bob Lutz photo, because he still managed to roll it in a J turn, even though the engineers said it wouldn’t.
The Opel 1900 (Ascona) was a whole different ball game than the early Kadetts.
I remember several Opel Kadetts in my childhood. All were uniformly terrible. Unreliable and generally just fell apart. Granted, I never saw a new one…a 2-3 year old one could be had for a few hundred dollars. However, I had a hard crush for the GT and the Manta. I was always told Mantas were great, by people who never bought one.
Once again Paul and I are in complete, total agreement.
The 1971 Opel 1900/Manta is the car the Chevy Vega should had been.
1970-on-down Opel Kadett was quite “Crude and Rude”, in my opinion,
The Horizon/Omni were actually designed by Chrysler Europe as the replacement for the Simca 1100, using many 1100 components.
Why Chrysler didn’t import the 1100 as a Plymouth escapes me; Dodge figured that out a few years later.
Was just looking at an article on the Cordoba, which reminds me of another puzzling decision: Why Chrysler didn’t launch a mid-sized Chrysler with the ’66 or ’68 B-body refreshes. I know the argument is that they would have cannibalized full-size Plymouth sales, but I think intermediate buyers bought primarily based on size not price.
“Why Chrysler didn’t launch a mid-sized Chrysler with the ’66 or ’68 B-body refreshes” – a question for the ages (along with why they didn’t build a production version of the beautiful Turbine personal coupe.)
There was some deep belief at Chrysler that “junior cars” were beneath the Chrysler brand. I also suspect that had there been a serious belief that a smaller Chrysler would have sold in decent volumes (and not cannibalized Plymouth and Dodge sales) volume-loving Lynn Townsend would have been all over the idea. But I suspect the real answer was that everyone knew that a smaller Chrysler would not have snared many conquest buyers, only siphoned off buyers who would otherwise have bought a Satellite. Had the Chrysler brand been required to support its own dealer network you can bet that there would eventually have been both B and A body cars with the Chrysler badge.
I just scanned through it, will have a better read later.
In 2018 the one I’d want in my driveway is the Datsun 510
Uhhhh, haven’t you already chosen the VW? Only one car per customer, sir. 🙂
Not quite, my VW is a 1963. I was thinking of an additional car here 🙂
I had a ’71 Datsun 510 “back in the day” and really miss it! The problem is they’ve all returned to the earth in the salt-laden northeast. Most of those left out west seem to have been modified into racers. Rare to see one that is unmolested.
Conspicuous by its absence in this review is the Austin America – 1968 would be the first year for it. (Though the same basic car was sold here earlier as the MG Sport Sedan.) These were technically advanced for the time but quickly acquired a reputation for being horribly unreliable. (I remember that you could pick one up that was a few years old for just $50 to $100, and there would be few takers.) In particular the 4-speed automatic transmissions, which lived in the sump and ran on engine oil, were very prone to self-destructing at low mileage.
I hear you, i had a 69 4 door and was is one of the best most fun to drive cars i ever had. i would snap one up in a sec just to have it again.
VW Beetle [really was its nickname then] was the main target, and started the segment.
Nowadays, sub compacts have declined in importance to the market. But there’s always an entry buyer.
If I recall correctly, Road Test was famous for not accepting advertising, with the message that it wasn’t biased by advertising revenue. And today, the article certainly makes a very interesting historical read. But the journalism is pretty poor. The photos of the Cortina show an automatic shifter … yet the implication is that the test vehicle is a 4 speed manual. The photos captioned as showing ingress/egress difficulty with the Corona, in fact show the Fiat. And it seems misleading to describe the Cortina as similar to the Falcon; with strut front suspension, rack and pinion steering, cross flow head and optional GT with 2 barrel carb and tube headers, plus tachometer, they really only shared a badge and corporate styling.
Criticism aside, thanks for posting and it was especially interesting to me as I’ve driven a few of these cars, and ridden in all but the Simca. I attended a high school just far enough away that car-pooling was common before (and even after) we got our licenses. One of the families started with a Corona and graduated to a Kadett (the next generation with 1900 engine in the US) at some point. I remember it being less roomy, but the mom, who was from France, much preferred the Kadett 4 speed floor shift as she always seemed to struggle with the Toyota’s 3 on the tree. Another family had a 124 sedan … it was the most fun to ride in. My sister owned a Cortina, many friends had Fiats, 510’s and Beetles, and I once got a ride in an R10 after running out of gas, in rural Virginia of all places. Thanks for the memories!!
The four speed became standard in the Corona starting in 1969.
This Corona was definitely 3 on the tree; I started high school in ‘69 and it was already a few years old. Of the cars I remember car-pooling in with parent drivers: the Corona, Kadett, and 124, various Volvos, BMW 1600 and 2800, Land Rover 88, VW Squareback, and Corvair, only the latter was domestic and an automatic. Actually, come to think of it, one parent had an automatic Rambler. All the cars except the 6 cylinder BMW were also some shade of gray or tan or brown … despite the perception, those times didn’t seem very colorful to me. I got a few rides from a teacher who had a green Saab 96 V4, 4 on the tree. And the Corona was the only Japanese car. In hindsight, not just predominately foreign, but all smallish cars and mostly 4 cylinder. How times have changed!
The early Corona had a 3-on-the-tree which would be familiar and acceptable to American drivers of the time – but instead of a turn signal stalk you moved the horn ring to either side! Inscrutable.
Nash did a similar thing with the Metropolitan – it had a 3-on-the-tree (actually a 4-speed trans with 1st blocked off) for familiarity but used a switch above the horn button to operate the turn signals.
Virginia? Could have been my Father’s R10….he traded it in on a Datsun early in 1974. We lived in a bedroom community about 35 miles from Washington DC, so we were hardly rural, but who knows where the car ended up (ours was kind of that grey color, darker than silver). He bought the car up in South Burlington Vermont at Almartin Motors (a small place near the Airport; I don’t recall it being part of another dealership, it was more like a first time dealer just starting out, more like a garage).
He actually owned two of these cars (consecutively, not at the same time)..one bought used (a ’59 Beetle) and one bought new (a ’68 R10…bought after the VW was totaled parked in front of our house by a teenager who lived at the end of our street)…the VW was the first “second car” in our family, which was a ’65 Oldsmobile F85 wagon. So for me I’d have to choose between the R10 and the Beetle unless I instead wanted “my Father’s Oldsmobile” (sorry, couldn’t resist). Guess I would choose the R10, but I have fond memories of both cars.
In retrospect the R10 was to be a poor choice in time, but I think you have to put your head back 50 years and to try to eliminate the bias of what has happened since that we already know about as to why he bought it. I can no longer ask my Dad about why he chose the R10 after owning a Beetle (he died 2 years ago) but I think I knew him well enough to make some pretty good guesses.
At the time, lots was happening around small cars which I think influences small cars to this day…the shrinking number of European cars (at least sold in the US) and the expanding number of Asian cars available. The Toyota Corolla first came out in 1968 (wonder why it wasn’t chosen rather than the Crown in this comparison?) but it certainly wasn’t obvious in 1968 that Asian cars (including small cars) would dominate in the next 50 years. Cars like the VW were well established by then, and I think most people would have bet that they would continue to dominate small cars (which at the time, they were on their way to being eclipsed since it took VW so long to find a good successor to the Beetle). I think this was right at the point where rear engine/rear drive was going to be eclipsed by front engine/front drive, but it hadn’t quite tipped that way (though there were front wheel drive cars then, rear engine/rear drive cars were still more common for small cars).
As to what that has to do with my Father, I think part of the reason he chose the Renault over the VW, was that the Renault was a roomier small car (he was a family man, even with the Oldsmobile, he would have liked his second car also to be able to accommodate the 5 persons his family had grown to at that point..the R10 had a roomier rear seat than the VW and 4 doors (despite the odd sliding rear windows to save space in the doors..maybe GM should have tried this on their ’78 Mid-sized cars?). The seats were very comfortable, despite the vinyl upholstery (maybe not quite as good as Peugeot, but very nice). My Dad was a fan of Radial tires, this was the first car he owned that came with them standard. Not sure what he thought of the 4 wheel disk brakes, but I remember when I first got them on my ’86 VW GTI (almost 20 years later) I was pretty happy, though they’ve since become standard on almost every car since. But my father really wasn’t a car guy (in my opinion) and perhaps the real reason was at the time he was travelling to France quite a bit on business and was at least a bit of a fan of the French, and maybe he ignored the warning signs around the Dauphine which had been around for about a decade by then….in retrospect a Datsun (which is what he ended up replacing the R10 with) would have been a better choice.
It became somewhat academic, as I mentioned he traded it in for a Datsun/ Again, he’s not around to ask him the reason, but ironically I think it had to do with fuel milage…not that the Datsun was better than the R10 (it was probably worse) but that he wanted my Mother to drive it more after the gas crisis, and though she knew how to drive standard, she was never very comfortable doing it…so if he had bought an automatic R10 in ’68 we might have had the car longer. I think it only had 22k miles on it by then, it was mostly his drive to work car…didn’t recall too many problems with the car, but it did need a new clutch, I remember driving back from a Washington Senators baseball game with him nursing the clutch and trying to time lights so he wouldn’t have to stop . Also, my mother didn’t like the styling of the R10, she said it looked the same coming as going (which was true for many of the 3 box sedans in the article) but I think that would have been a lesser issue.
So..maybe he should have just gone ahead and bought the Cadillac Eldorado just to get those disk brakes (small attempt at a joke).
The guy in the embossed lab coat reviewing the interiors looks completely ridiculous! I guess things got serious after the Simca disappeared.
Lol very funny!
Actually, this missing Simca has been found! It seems that Road Test simply reused data and some photos from the Economy Import Comparison test they conducted for the February 1967 issue. Look for that as next Friday’s “long form” post to see the Simca get its due.
I’d go with the 1500 VW. Errr, my avatar would go with the 1500 VW
Sunbeam Arrow is Absent Here.
Did anyone notice that the line drawing used as the basis of the dimensions table illustrates a DAF?
I did!!
Yes, I did pick up on that! So weird. And nothing in the artwork to hint that it’s a DAF unless you’re know what they are. Possibly because the average US reader would just think this was an faceless / imaginary car. Don Andreina wrote a series on those a little while ago.
Our first exposure to the Corona was a rental on the big island of Hawaii. 1968 was the year, as a matter of fact. I remember my folks being moderately impressed with the car, given they weren’t small car people. A college girlfriend drove a powder blue Datsun 510. I have a much clearer memory of that car (go figure). Not a bad driving car at all. We took one eye-opening trip to Eugene from Portland during a snowstorm, and the Datsun left us stranded in Albany. Turned out later, the carb had iced up, and we weren’t aware there was a flap on the side of the air cleaner to prevent that (stoopid kids!).
Her mom drove up from Eugene to rescue us. She had a new Audi 100LS- and that was the eye opener. Amazing how well that fwd car went, at a time when I-5 was nearly deserted because of the adverse weather.
I love these old road tests- thank you!
The stark contrast between progressive, sporty Datsun and conservative, stodgy Toyota left an impression that lasted for years with me, until the latter’s Twincams came out in the ’80s.
My brother’s 1st car was a navy blue ’70 Corona.
Actually, Toyota did have the 9R twincam in the Corona 1600 GT, but evidently, it was never offered Stateside. As with the Taurus SHO, it was a Yamaha job.
Your comment made me think about how we regarded those cars back then. I agree, that the OHC and IRS made the 510 seem sportier, aided by Datsun’s competition efforts, not to mention the ruboff from the 240Z. But in actual fact a stock 510 wasn’t really the bargain BMW that many people claimed it was. I had a friend who worked on locals’ cars out of his garage in the early ‘70’s, and he claimed Datsuns were more reliable and easier to work on than Coronas or Corollas. He drove a Cortina …
Datsun 510’s were huge among the sports car and rally crowd in northwestern PA/northeastern OH – mainly because they were already getting a reputation as a “poor man’s BMW”.
Those punters in high school who didn’t have muscle cars with fats in the back had tricked-up 510 coupes or Japanese pickups. I understand competition drivers were impressed by the solidity of the 510’s driveline.
They weren’t exactly BMW’s, but they most certainly were sporty and had a very capable chassis and suspension setup. Shekhar Mehta, winner of the 1973 and 1979 thru 1982 Safari Rallies, talked about his first experience with the 510. When they were new, he was approached by Datsun to potentially rally the cars. He was amazed to find that he could drive flat out over bumps that other cars, simply put, couldn’t handle the resulting impact. He specifically mentioned the 2002 as the only other car, unmodifoed, that could do the same up until that point. The man ended up having a very successful rally career with Nissan, and it is also notable to point out he felt the 240Z rally car to be a dangerous unwieldy machine in comparison.
For some reason, I have very good memories of Renaults as a child and early adolescent. Part of it’s easy: One summer afternoon coming home for lunch, dad brought an automatic Dauphine home with him for his kid to play around. Only this time, he actually let me drive it up and down the driveway before going back to work. The first car I ever drove, and I still remember it clearly.
The R10 belonged to an elderly (aka, 15 or so years older than mom) who would occasionally take me in for the afternoon if mom needed a baby sitter. We’d run errands in that car, and I really loved it. The reviews comments regarding the seats are dead on. Before Volvo made the best possible seats you could find in a car, Renault was making them. I was also floored by the wood dash in the R10, as this was back in the days when you had to buy a Jaguar or something likewise British to get that kind of luxury. This was a couple of years before broughams became popular.
Always wanted to own a Renault (as long as it was a “real” Renault, and not an Alliance or Encore – real Renaults are built in France), but life saw to it that I’d never own one. Even ensuring that one caught fire on a test drive!
Thank you for posting this, GN. Very illuminating (as are the comments above).
I’d be hard-pressed to pick a favourite. I’m more familiar with the Opel, as my mother used to have one. It was durable enough, but nobody in the family remembers it fondly. Folks who drove Renaults always claimed theirs were the most comfortable cars in that class, and it seems the journos here agree. I just can’t get past the styling.
Maybe the Datsun would be the best compromise.
The thing that strikes me about the specs is the price difference between the Datsun and Toyota.
My pick? Easily the Renault.
I remember this issue of “Road Test” magazine. It was one of my very first experiences with a car magazine as a child and began my life-long addiction to the car buff magazines. There were advertisements for Renaults in several other magazines in which Renault offered to mail you a copy of this issue of “Road Test” magazine if you would cut out a coupon, fill it in, and mail it to them. I kind of think that the Renault ads were in “Time” magazine, or maybe “Post” or “Life” magazine, which my parents subscribed to at the time.
I was 9 years old and cut out and mailed in the coupon and the magazine came in the mail after 2 or 3 weeks. This was followed by the arrival of a salesman driving a Renault 10. He had driven 160 miles from Great Falls, Montana to sell me a Renault. My father answered the door and explained that I (a mere lad) had cut out and mailed in the coupon to get a free magazine and that he wasn’t interested in buying a Renault. (He was 6′ 6″ tall and only drove full-sized American cars and trucks. Over the years he’s shrunk to being only 6′ 4″.) The disappointed salesman probably had a long drive home to Great Falls.
I read and re-read the magazine for years and it was a prized childhood possession. Aside from the big road test, Road Test also published sales figures for cars sold in the U.S. and I found that fascinating, although they weren’t current for very long.
About ten years later one of my cousins bought a used Renault 10 for $200. It was fine for about a year and the the starter quit. It turns out that a new starter cost $200 at the time, so for quite a long time she started the car by pushing it. I’ve heard that these Renault 10s had handcranks in their engine compartments, but she never used the one in hers, if it had one. Apparently this was a common problem with the Renault 10 as I did run into one other Renault 10 owner who had the same problem. My cousin tried to sell it, but found no takers and I believe that the Renault 10 ended up parked behind their barn on their farm and it was still there when they sold the farm to buy a bigger place.
I know a late reply, but this got my attention. The Renault 10 I rode in had a pulley with a notch in on the end of the crankshaft like a lawn mower or outboard motor. You could actually pull start the engine with a rope!
The odd thing is to see the Cortina as a ‘really small car’; as a child I thought they were quite big, especially the estate cars (wagons). Minis and Imps and Anglias were really small (BMC 1100s too, but later I found out they were Cortina sized inside…). I have to say modern cars are far to wide to a lot of urban streets in Britain; probably the same in many old European towns too.
It will be interesting to see what they thought of the Anglia (I assume the 105E ‘Breezeway’ style model from 1959) in 1967 as it was in its last year of production with the replacement Escort waiting in the wings.
I’d be terrified to drive any of those cars on American roads for fear of getting into a serious accident. I’ve seen lots of them and it didn’t usually end well for those little cars. I would try my hardest to come up with another couple of hundred dollars and use my best negotiating skills to get a Valiant or a Nova, or maybe a used Satellite or Cutlass.
But I guess if it was the choice between taking the bus or driving one of those cars, I would get a 510, both for the fun factor and they seem to have had the best survival rate next to the Bug.
When this test came out I was on a Navy ship and driving a 66 beetle. I was in the market for another car. Anecdotal experiences of my fellow sailors told me that the Datsun was a hot rod and the rest were of dubious reliability. I knew for sure that the vw heater did not keep me warm in CT. Who knows if that was correct but one needed a reliable car because it was tough getting cars fixed at that place and time.
I actually waited a year and bought a 69 Dodge Cornett with a 318 Auto. Never regretted passing on any of these but the Datsun, Toyota, and VW all would appeal to me now. I actually bought 3 more VWs but I was living in warmer places.
The Renault. Great seats, ride, in their view handling (a bit surprising, that), brakes, and rack steering. Only, I’d have to buy a large paper bag to cover it as I got in; it is a dreadful-looking, ill-proportioned thing. It looks like….I dunno, a hot water system or something. Euro and local ones here had square lights just to complete the aggressive ugliness. And just for complete inconsistency, I don’t mind the R8 at all, rather like a severely cut suit than a big square nosed appliance. The Fiat is one of those little Euro cars far better than the sum of it’s basic parts, and a good second placer.
I’m surprised by the criticisms of the Datsun. I’ve driven a BMW 1600 and a number of of Datsun 1600’s, and they were indistinguishable. Same slightly harsh, revvy engine, same shapeless springy seats, same slick box, same rather vague steering (worse in the Datto), same long-travel ride and same really good handling. Much nicer interior on the German. By no particular coincidence, many a 1600 Datsun got Renault seats here, probably out of a broken one. The Datsuns turned out to be a car that could not be broken by anything. But they don’t have a lot of character, to me.
The article becomes comical, a fart into the wind, when those sales figures are given. All these makes TOGETHER sold just over one third of the bloody Beetle, and Renault just 3% of VW! Not many were listening to the testers at Road Test, it seems.
Impressed by the thoroughness of the comparison. Datsun styling aged so well, compared to the others.
The length to wheel base ratio on the Renault 10 led to some Detroit-esc overhangs.
I’d have thought the Fiat’s 65 HP would have been DIN, not SAE too.
The “racer’s dream” re the cross flow head made me laugh. I hated working on those lumps
One thing I’m unclear on: did *every* Buick dealer in the US sell Opels, and did *every* Ford dealer sell the English cars? Which Mopar dealers sold Simcas? RT makes a good point that despite this seeming like an advantage over brands with weaker distribution, IRL the domestic-car dealerships didn’t want, and often didn’t know how, to deal with the occasional captive import that shows up in the service bays.
Some of these, like the Fiat, probably looked better in a comparison test of this sort than it would in a “let’s live with it for two or three years” test. I’m quite sure no matter how smitten I was with most of the Euro imports, my heart would be broken after years of ownership.
MG is cited quite a bit given they weren’t part of the test.
None of these cars really grab me. With benefit of hindsight, the Datsun seems to have been the best choice, sporty, though also rather sparse. I’ve never heard anyone before now call them a “PL-510”.
No. I’m pretty sure it was something they had to sign up for on top of/in addition to their existing franchise agreement. (I don’t know exactly how it was structured contractually, but that was the gist.) It was something that originated during the late ’50s recession, so there was pretty broad interest at first, but it appears a lot of dealers lost interest once homegrown compacts became available. This seems to be why the U.S.-market Vauxhall was dropped in the early ’60s; I presume that so many Pontiac dealers dropped out once the Tempest arrived that it was no longer worth the bother of importing the cars, even though the regulatory burden was significantly less than it became later in the decade.
I long thought (at least once US-market Vauxhalls were discontinued) that Pontiac would have been a better fit for Opel than Buick was.
PL510 (or WPL510 for wagons) was the internal model designation;
(W = Wagon)
P = Passenger car
L = Left-hand drive
5 = Fifth generation (of the Bluebird series, a nameplate Datsun was unable to use in the US because of the school bus builder’s trademark)
1 = Effectively a redundant passenger-car designation, the pickups were the x20 series
0 = Original revision of the design generation, no longer in use effective with the first revision to the 510 series (there was never a 511 or 512 even on the chassis plate although there had been xx1 and xx2s of earlier Datsuns and the 510 did get revisions, a new dash for 1970 for example).
Not all of these have “opposites”; a right-hand drive truck seems to have been the default and given null codes, so a contemporary JDM or Aussie-export Bluebird sedan would’ve been model P510 and a US-spec pickup model L520.
The MG seems to have suffered a worst fate than the Simca with only a rather scathing don’t buy recommendation. Somebody forgot to remove the piece presumably from the 1967 test.
They have the photos of the Fiat and the Corona reversed in driver exit shots. Good ol’ Road Test!
The only ones I would have considered back then would have been the Cortina (good reputation) and the Datsun. Odds are that neither would have lasted the next 56 years, but I’d rather have the Datsun to drive or the Cortina for nostalgia. The Toyota was only a 1500 here: too stodgy. The Renault was comfortable but a technological dead end, the Fiat lacked the service backup here (and was reputed to need it). The VW was just too old fashioned for me to consider it, though Uncle Jack was on his second and praised them.
The Opel and Simca weren’t sold here; they seem to have been no loss.
They mentioned more powerful engines for the Opel–why didn’t they get one instead of that slug? Was “tudor sedan” a saying back then or a typo?
The only Beetle I’ve driven was a clutchless shifter for a few miles in HS, and just as well, as I hadn’t used a clutch before then. But come to think of it, I can’t remember when or what true manual I first drove. I can remember my older brother’s embarrassingly bad first attempt with his friend’s Dodge. He persevered, and has bought nothing but manuals, now over 40 years of them. His wife drives them, too.
Hood of the Fiat tilts forward for safety but I wouldn’t like to be hit into the right rear just for safety .On the other hand , very practical when you are driving through the Parc des Laurentides towards Chicoutimi and a deer lands on it . Lada was supposed to be made with thicker steel than Fiat…we didn’t ask the deer. Below, my friend’s trophy.
Surprised by the 3 speed manual on the Toyota. This was soon rectified.
Reminds me of the 3 speed manual on early Vegas. GM trying to save a penny or two at every corner with detrimental effect.
For about the same money…forget any of these beer cans, I’ll take a Plymouth Valiant 100. 170ci six (real world mileage about the same as these), 3 speed manual, only options limited slip axle and HD suspension. (Which should get me 10″ brakes.) Hit a junkyard (or someone swapping to Cragars) for 14″ wheels.
Maybe hit Sears for an air conditioning system.