Front

The car has all its original Toshiba headlights, and the grill is original, clean and straight. I replaced the front bumper with an OEM replacement as the original had a couple of defects and I had a spare front bumper in stock. The front of the car is very clean, with hardly any paint chips

Sides

The driver’s side of the car is very clean and straight, with no defects, rust bubbles, or other blemishes. There are a couple of small chips in the paint, but they are VERY minor. This photo hopefully will show you how straight the body is on the driver’s side of the car.

Here is a photo of the passenger side reflection to show you how straight the side of the car is (other than the dent mentioned below) The reflection in the center of the door is just a shrub, and is not a dent.

The passenger side of the car has the car’s only "issue". The original owner of the car brushed up against the side of her garage and left this dent on the rear fender lip. I have left this dent unrepaired as I would rather maintain the original paint (I don’t have good luck with painters!) rather than spoil the car with mis-matched paint.

Note the original bias-ply tires, and how clean the inner fenders on the car are—there are NO rust bubbles anywhere on the underside of the car! The total length of the dent is about three inches.

Trunk

The trunk is in outstanding condition. One of the most likely places to find rust in a 510 is in the bottom well of the trunk. Ms. Dottie has the cleanest, original trunk that I have ever seen. I dream of a trunk this clean for my 510! ;) Note all original tools and wheel chocks are there, and are in the correct position.

Interior

Ms. Dottie’s interior is nearly perfect in everyway. I think that the fact that so few miles have been put on the car, in addition to being garaged all it’s life have kept Ms. Dottie’s interior almost as clean as the day that she left the factory in 1972. Note the optional factory clock, and the mileage.

This is a nice overall shot of the interior from the driver’s side. There are no cracks in the dashboard, and everything works! The only blemish in the interior is a small tear in the driver’s side seat bolster. The ignition buzzer even works—try finding another 510 that still has the ignition buzzer working!

Here is another shot of the interior from the passenger side of the car.

The door panels are all-perfect, and have had no holes, cigarette burns, dogs chewing on them, or any other blemish!

The interior is so clean that the leather straps for the rear window latches still exist, and are present on both sides of the car.

The floors are one of the first places to rust out on any 510, and Ms. Dottie has the cleanest floors that I have ever seen on a 510. Here is a shot of the driver’s floor, the first to rot out on almost any 510—there is ZERO rust on these floors! The purplish stain is from the original glue used to hold down the horse hide sound insulation pads.

The passenger side floor is even cleaner!

Engine Compartment

The engine compartment is all original and unrestored. The engine purrs like a kitten, and has no issues. Other pluses going for Ms. Dottie are the automatic transmission—why you ask? The cars equipped with the automatic have a larger transmission tunnel that will accept Nissan’s late model transmissions without any modification. So, if you ever planned on doing a modern engine swap, an automatic car would be ideal. When I first did the on-lift inspection of the car, I pulled the automatic transmission drain pan from the car and we could not believe how clean the transmission was, it was so clean that we flushed the fluid and cleaned the filter, returning the aftermarket filter that I had purchased to the parts store. This car has been lovingly maintained all its life!

Etcetera

Ms. Dottie was also featured in the April 1999 issue of "Collectible Automobile" magazine as the car to illustrate their article about Datsun 510s!

The car really needs to have a set of radials installed to make it a daily driver. I have kept the bias-ply tires on the car to keep it original and to keep me from adding more miles to the car. Driving the car with the bias-ply tires keeps one from trying anything silly, as the level of adhesion is severely limited with such a small contact patch

March 2000 Announcement:

Ms Dottie was sold to a Nissan Dealership in California for full asking price.

Michael Spreadbury's former ad writie-up is now showcased at ZPARTS.COM for historical purposes and for all that love viewing well preserved older Datsun cars.

The Price

So, now that you have a better idea of what the car really looks like, I guess that you will want to get a price. I am asking $6,500 OBO for the car.

Yes, that is a lot for a stock 510, but when you consider that you will easily have double that into restoring a car to this condition I consider it very reasonable. I think that one look at the market to see how molested, rusted, and generally thrashed most of these cars are these days, buying as clean as a car as possible will save you lots of money in the long run. I cannot emphasize enough how clean and original this 510 is, it is the nicest original 510 that I have ever seen.

Photos & text by Michael Spreadbury, spriso@proaxis.com
510 Editor of Z Car Magazine

AD DESIGN by Eric Neyerlin of zpARTS