found it
Hmmm, I can never keep out of adding my 2 cents to these kinds of threads, especially when it is about a 1200
Popularity with JDM tin has meant prices of most circa 1970’s Datsuns have doubled over the last 7-8 years from what I have seen, and much like cars such as RE Mazdas (& replicas), AE86’s, and various other RWD jap machines, these are firmly etched in history to be classic and collectable due to their popularity & accessibility for the everyday man, and the competitive racer alike. Even though they were made in reasonably high production numbers for the day, these cars have been rolled, bowled & arseholed over the years, and they are now getting fewer and farther between.
I remember my first two Datsun 1200’s cost me $200 & $100 respectively, for complete going cars, that needed feck all done to get a WOF some 2 decades ago. 8 years ago I brought my 95% complete coupe for $2200 as a project and there were not that many around at the time, however with the appreciating market, a few more seem to still come out of the woodwork nowadays in clean original condition.
The reality is, whether you like it or not, for a 1200 coupe is going to stretch the budget more than you anticipated, other than if you come across one of those ‘to good to be true’ kind of deals, values of 1200 coupes in my opinion, and what you get for your coin/perceived value:
$500-1500
This will get you a rusty stripped shell that needs full ground up rebuilt and the cost & hassle of procuring a lot of parts, which will cost you a shit ton more time & money then if you just brought a decent one to start with. In all likelihood you will bolt some JDM wheels on it, half fit a motor and then lose interest and sell it 2 years from now for $500 on trademe, when you realize you need to spend 10K on the panel work alone….
$1500-2500
This should get you an honest project car. Unfortunately it will probably have dead plates, retofitted Honda front seats in it, and be missing some plastic trim that is coupe specific and harder to find than hens teeth in good condition for a good price. It will need minor-medium rust repairs, and probably chrome replaced with shit aftermarket Taiwenese stuff. It will need thorough going over of brakes, steering and mechanics, and acquisition of a few parts to bring back to anywhere near its former glory, it will need slammed and wheels fitted of course.
$2500-4000
This should get you a 95% complete car with hopefully live plates reg on hold, and only needing a few weekends hard work and a few hundy to get it back on the road. You can then enjoy using it while you plan your attack for pimping it out to your taste, and addressing the issues that you would have discovered it has from driving it!
$4000-6000
This should get you a sound reg/wof complete car ready to cruise, and if you do your due diligence on a thorough pre purchase appraisal of the body work in particular then you could be on to a winner, where you can be out using your Datsun every weekend, rather than working on it! Also this sort of car will have the best resale / chance of getting your coin back if you choose to sell down the track.
$6000-8000
This gets you up into the extremely tidy original car bracket, and also the tastefully mildy modified bracket. Beware there are cars lurking within this bracket with retrofitted rotary engines (jokes). If you get a good one, this means you can spend your pocket money on tastefully subtly modifying, rather than hiding money under the mattress for the inevitable day you need to strip it down and rust repair & rebuild it.
$8000-12000
This gets you up into the showroom condition or extensively modified ‘DET’ certified type car. These come up now and again for sale, but generally purchasers are unrealistic to the value of vehicles or try to swap the Datsun for their RB powered Ceffy, or their pink stickered S14….. thus, sellers get frustrated and so they end up keeping their datto
$12,000-25,000
Restored / modified examples, ie Aaron & Lukes coupes would fall within this bracket in my opinion once finished.
much like the Unicorn below, a very small market exists for such cars, should the time come to sell them
$40,000+
The elusive ‘Unicorn’ bracket, this is for those idiots that spend way too much on their coupe with full ground up restoration & custom ITB setup & get crazy with acquisition of NOS parts, have some form of obsessive compulsive disorder…….. and have now created a unique piece of over-capatilized JDM tin, that they can not sell ever……. Due to thousands of hours & 45K spent on the complete build process… I think I might know one of those idiots! Like a Unicorn, the common person would surely think such a thing didn’t exist……
Of course what a car is arguably worth on the open market, and what its insured value or perceived value of the owner is a murky area….
