Most car people know that Nissan is the owner of the Datsun, brand but what came first?
The beginning of Datsun goes back to 1911, when Kwaishinsha Motor Car Works was established. Three of the men who invested in the company, Kenjiro Den, Rokuro Aoyama and Aketaro Takeuchi built the company’s first car in 1914 and called it “DAT,” a name using the last initials of the three investors.
There were some larger vehicles produced under the DAT name, but in 1931 a more compact car was produced which was called a “DATSON,” as it was sort of the son of DAT. Clever, but in Japanese the meaning of “son” is “loss” so they changed the “son” to “sun,” and in 1932 the company name was changed to Datsun.
Nissan took control of Datsun in 1934. The first Datsun sports car exported to the USA was called “Fairlady” in reference to the popular Broadway musical at the time, “My Fair Lady.” The second generation of Fairlady models was introduced in 1961 and sold as Datsun 1500, 1600 and 2000 roadsters.
The numbers indicate the engine size in liters, 1.5, 1.6 or 2. The 1600 and 2000 Roadsters did quite well in the Sports Car Club of America, winning 10 of that organization’s national championships and were produced until 1970, when the Datsun 240Z was introduced.
This issue’s featured vehicle is a 1969 Datsun 2000 roadster. This car is flawless, truly a show car, and is owned by John Baker, of Lafayette. The car wasn’t flawless when he acquired it, though.
“I’ve owned the car about 12 years, finding it on Craig’s List,” Baker said. “It was owned by a woman whose husband had died, and it had been sitting in driveway for about 25 years.
“I had gone several years without having a project car. By 2011 I was itching to do a car. I had done cars, but I had never done a car that needed everything. And this car needed everything.”
Baker had previously owned a few Datsuns and decided to look for a fairly rare Datsun roadster.
“I looked at various cars that didn’t work out, but there was one car on Craig’s List with a picture that looked like it taken in the 1960s or 1970s, and they wanted a lot of money for it. Every time I would look for a car, there it was.”
He was living in the Los Angeles area at the time and decided that he would go see this car some distance away in Pomona.
“The car didn’t look anything like the car in the picture. The pictures were like 25 years old. It had been stored in the back yard uncovered for about 10 years. It started, but the interior was completely rotted away. Everything was completely rusted.”
The wiring was bad, the brakes froze, the dash was cracked and much more. The owner’s husband had passed away, and no one in the family wanted the car, let alone wanted to restore it. The widow really wanted the car fixed up, as it had meant so much to her husband.
She wanted $6,000 for it. Baker promised to fix the car up, and she accepted $4,000. He drove it home, and Baker had his project car but not at a bargain price. Baker spent 10 years and copious amounts of money restoring this Datsun 2000 working almost full-time on it.
He would fix one part of the car and then the part next to that looked bad, so that would have to be fixed. It was a never-ending situation.
“There weren’t that many of these cars built, so parts were expensive and hard to find, so when a part becomes available you have to buy it at the price offered.”
The car is now worthy of a Concours d’Elegance auto show and already winning first place in some high-class competitions. Baker’s car collecting enjoyment comes from solving problems and perfecting the car, not so much in car shows or driving it. He’s already thinking of moving on to his next project car — maybe a BMW 3.0 CS coupe.
Have an interesting vehicle? Email Dave at MOBopoly@yahoo.com. To read more of his columns or see more photos of this and other issues’ vehicles, visit mercurynews.com/author/david-krumboltz.