New Zealand Datsun Club

Thanks Darryll! Yep. I cant really remember it ever letting my parents down. They traded it in on a Nissan Sunny 1.3 wagon which was actually really good. The family kept that until about two years ago. I was the last to own it and sold it on to a young fella in Nelson. We used to call that one our 'Nissan 1.3 racing Sunny'. Everyone in the family owned it and it drove all over NZ.

Im hoping that our old Datsun, once returned to service, will be that sort of car too. I have no intention to get carried away and make it all pretty. I want it to wear the patina it has with pride and earn its salvation. I see it being a very useful little wagon for biking trips and collecting building supplies.

Whats crazy is that these wee cars now seem to be popular enough that I will have to be careful where I leave it parked and make sure its locked with extra security to avoid little shits from nicking it. Although its no where near as 'wanted' as a Mazda or some toyotas luckily (and it seems Datsuns dont yet have a 'scene' tax which is good! Just like my Vivas then

Big thanks to Dave for delivering the Datsun out to us on Saturday night.





We shuffled it into a good position for the morning sun and this morning Hannah and I gave it a decent wash. I wanted to keep all the moss in place but really it was just so covered it wouldn’t help my case when applying for a new registration/test. So off it was washed. I took some piccys first though..







Then wash time..



After it was washed down I pulled the seats out and removed the old carpet. As to be expected there is some rust holes where water has sat between the sound deadening and the floor. Luckily most of the floor is pretty solid as are the inner sills. So patchwork repairs will take place there. Im sure once up on the hoist it will gift me more lovely rusty areas to repair but overall I am really pleasantly surprised at how well the thin steel on this car has survived!







Engine bay pretty good but for a few little bits..







I pulled some of the filler out from the dents and apart from surface rust it is mainly just dents the filler was covering. Not really deep dents either. Someone has tried to make this car look pretty at some point which bodes well for it having had a proud owner. I wouldn’t be surprised if the dents were put there by my mum or dad when ferrying us kids around. It was quite a little hack for our family.

The roof is really straight. Awesome! Plus the gutters, tailgate, doors etc are all solid as. It has the original Datsun screen still place and no signs at all of even bubbling around the seals. Happy about that!



Whilst cleaning out the inside I scored some more treats as well as money.



The car now owes me only $247.95. It would be less if the 20c coins I found were not the outdated ones. One of them is 1980. Could have been mine. Maybe I dropped it and missed out on my 20c sweet mixture that day.



Oh really?....



I also spotted that it has already been fitted with top quality hifi speakers. Bonus..



So that’s it for now. With the carpet out the car is now nice and dry inside plus I know roughly what I have to do. But I need to finish the Viva wagon first before I start any rust repairs on this. So it will be pushed out back and brought inside when the time is right. Between now and then I can do my best to locate an engine or hopefully get the original 1200cc one back. Plus look for a disc brake front end and brake servo to suit. Oh..and some nice period alloys as well. Hopefully some turbos or even slot mags.

i have some goodies for not much money for this car, il pm you.

Hay mate let me know if you can manage to find window rubbers for the rear quarter windows:) it looks I. Better shape than when I started mine so should be a minter when done.