The Red Baron
Posted: 20 Nov 2014 17:08
The year was 1998, I was a junior in high school and for the past 2 years I had just worked 365 days a year delivering newspapers and finally saved up $1000 to buy my first car. MY dad said no V8s so that 1971 lowered Chevy C10 I saw every day was out of the question. Somehow I stumbled upon the movie Against All Odds and the rest was history. For about 5 years I lived and breathed 510s owning about 8 of them and even doing my senior project in high school on auto racing by following Troy Ermish around for a day. Was able to befriend Dean Sherman and went with him to Mt. Shasta in 2001. Then once I started having to wear suits (in finance field), having no air conditioning and smelling like grease all the time got old fast.
Fast forward to 2014, married with a 2-year-old and running a small business = time to get back into my passion. Searching craigslist early one morning and stumbled upon the 1971 Datsun 510 you see below. The listing mentioned low mileage and the previous owner being an older lady (yeah right, I thought). Stock with L16 and automatic. No pictures which is never a good sign... I called him and got the basic story which was that the original owner named Mary bought it brand new from Palo Alto Datsun in CA and kept it from 1971 until 2007 and then the current owner bought it from her estate for his 16-year old daughter to drive to and from high school about 5 miles away. The mileage was a little over 52k (wow!). He painted it the original color, put new Panasports on it with some mild springs but everything else was pretty much original. After getting some pictures texted to me, I scheduled some time the next day to check it out.
After seeing the car for about 5 mins, I knew I had to buy it. The price was fair and the opportunity too good to pass up. Drove it home (hour away) and immediately started to plan out the lifelong project. Keep it looking fairly original, respect the Datsun spirit but improve the fun and reliability factor. I think I have a good base to meet that goal.
First drive home in the 510! Was super excited and surprised with all the attention the car received.
The interior (besides some crappy Kenwood CD deck) is completely stock down to original carpet which was looking very tired at this point.
Stock L16 with a 32/36 Weber DGV and all the smog stuff pulled off it.
Fast forward to 2014, married with a 2-year-old and running a small business = time to get back into my passion. Searching craigslist early one morning and stumbled upon the 1971 Datsun 510 you see below. The listing mentioned low mileage and the previous owner being an older lady (yeah right, I thought). Stock with L16 and automatic. No pictures which is never a good sign... I called him and got the basic story which was that the original owner named Mary bought it brand new from Palo Alto Datsun in CA and kept it from 1971 until 2007 and then the current owner bought it from her estate for his 16-year old daughter to drive to and from high school about 5 miles away. The mileage was a little over 52k (wow!). He painted it the original color, put new Panasports on it with some mild springs but everything else was pretty much original. After getting some pictures texted to me, I scheduled some time the next day to check it out.
After seeing the car for about 5 mins, I knew I had to buy it. The price was fair and the opportunity too good to pass up. Drove it home (hour away) and immediately started to plan out the lifelong project. Keep it looking fairly original, respect the Datsun spirit but improve the fun and reliability factor. I think I have a good base to meet that goal.
First drive home in the 510! Was super excited and surprised with all the attention the car received.
The interior (besides some crappy Kenwood CD deck) is completely stock down to original carpet which was looking very tired at this point.
Stock L16 with a 32/36 Weber DGV and all the smog stuff pulled off it.