+1

Looks like a nice clean canvas. What year is it again?

You just bought what could arguably be called one of the original Z cars, or Fairlady as it is called in Japan. They looked pretty cool for a 1959 Japanese car, the first ones they sold in the US in 1960 had 47hp!

Its a 1967.5

You know what....I'm sorry to admit I don't know a whole lot of history about the car but just know that I've always liked them.

Heck, I crawled under the car tonight to see what's going on and was surprised to see disk brakes in the front, that's awesome!

I was thinking I would just paint it but looking at how simple the construction is I think I may do a Frame off, shouldnt take me too long so what the heck!

Going to hold off on ordering the parts just yet, I'll do that when its in the body shop. Need to find a motor now...

Well I knew it wasn't a 1960's SPL212, those go for $100,000 unrestored! There was only 288 of those made.

The SPL311 which you have isn't as rare (but rare enough), had twice as much power, and still looks just as cool.

Chris, one quick question...

Considering the car is not as rare as some and I'll likely keep it, think I really need to keep the stock motor since its a numbers matching engine? I'm not one to stock pile things and considering the new motor will likely require some alterations to the mounts etc I doubt I'll ever need it... Suppose the right thing is to keep it but I'd really rather not unless I'm just blowing the whole value of this car by doing so.

What do you think?

That car looks good. Congrats on the purchase. Some day I plan to purchase one of these, and do something similar to what you are doing. I first need to build my additional 4 car garage - no space in the current garage.

Depends what you want to do with the car. If you are going for a full showroom restoration then keep the matching engine, it makes a big difference in the value in that case. If you just want to have fun with it then do whatever you want.

I think I would probably fall into the second category, I would store the original engine if I had space for it, although if you are doing heavy modifications then I wouldn't bother.

The best forum by far for information on these cars is 311s.org-Datsun Sport Roadsters

Here's a race ready car that's been heavily modified.
1968 Datsun SPL-311 Roadster "Small Bucks Racing" Ready to Race

Thanks for the info.

That site looks great, I'll dabble into it this weekend. That race one is a bit much but cool just the same. 2000 Lb car could be interesting with a 300HP motor..

Thanks again for the hookup on the site...those guys are already proving to be really helpful. Now I have two sites to watch but that's cool as the Nismo is nearly done for a while anyway.

Here's some pics of my first day wrenching on the Roadster, pulled out the interior, carpet, ripped the dash apart and some trim. Now I'm going to pull more chrome off and try and get the motor and trans out when I return from Hong Kong. After that, pulling the body off the frame to prep for the motor swap...going to be a cool little car when she's done.

Considering its age the body looks to be in really good shape!

Thankfully it is... Little spots on the floorboards but that's to be expected. Tell you this, pulling it apart for the last couple of days and I think half of the bolts snapped in half. Missing the NISMO right about now...HHAHA

Spent another 6 hours on her today. stripped it down even further. I'll shoot to get the body off the frame when i return from my trip. Lots of work to go on this one...

Trying to get the motor out tomorrow before I leave. Would like to get the frame off to the shop so they can cut and weld it to fit the new motor in.

Should be a pretty quick car, figure they are weighing in at 2000 lbs or less with the right parts. Throw in a few hundred HP and that's pretty respectable!

Wow, lots of progress in a short time. When you start something you get right after it. Looking good.

Thanks for sharing the pics!

Don't spend too long away or you wont remember how the pieces go back together, LOL. (Been there done that :)

I'm not using much of the stock parts anyway. I was thinking about just building a track car but my wife wants us to use it on the street too...pretty basic car, shouldnt be too tough (famous last words)

You move quick. I thought you had kids? I can never find this kind of time with the 3 rugrats I have; it would take me months to do it. I plan to repaint my race car over the off season, and so far I have only taken the decals off and some sanding, and that was over the last 2 months. :icon17: You'll be done in a few weeks, with a lot more work.

My daughter is 14 and a cheerleader, doesnt want to hang with us anymore. son plays so much World of Warcraft that I think he's writing the damn program.

No one wants to hang with good ol dad so I just wrench away. Met the nicest family today, came to my house to pick up some of the Roadster parts I don't want and the son is going to put the Turbo motor in it for me and mod the frame to hold it. He said it takes a while but it appears I'm done with my part for now. His father brought over his, my God is it badass! Thing is a rocket with Nat, Sat Radio, Alpine, power windows and here's the coolest thing, about 350 HP to the wheels and the car is barely 2000 lbs...NUTS.

Fate took a play on this one, met some great people, getting my car built by a Datsun/Nissan expert and I get my garage space back.

No more projects for a while!!! Yes Honey, I mean it this time :rolleyes:

If I was local I'd come hang with ya - looks like a fun build. I've had some great times working on cars with friends. I'll have to settle for pics on this one :)

Thanks for the great deal on the Nismo wheels man, let me tell you guys if you ever have an opportunity to do business with Motoextreme he is a class act. Thanks again man and I'll post pics in my journal when I get the Nismo wheels powdercoated and mounted on my car in the spring. Can't wait!

No worries bro, sorry for the wait on the parts but its taking a little longer then I thought to get done. No terrible rush now since I'm gone for a while.

Thanks for the biz man. Look forward to seeing it all done.

Had to bring this back alive. How's it going? I saw this one for sale on ebay - in my mind, one of the best I have seen in a while..

Datsun : eBay Motors (item 220549894578 end time Feb-11-10 09:37:09 PST)

Wow, that one is pristine. How much do you think it's going to go for?

Body is off the frame but unfortunately the body was not as nice as we thought. The inner fender well is bent and the rear is separating from the trunk a little. There's a bit more rust in the center hump then we thought...

We think we found another body for about 700 or so and the great news is the stock motor and hood off my car are worth at least that so I should break even.

The new turbo'd motor arrives on Thursday, bought it off some guy in Canada for $2000 with 30K miles, tranny, harness and pretty much everything I need.

I expect we'll have the car ready by April at the latest! Looking forward to it!!

Awesome! I was hoping the Z didn't take you completely away from this project :tup:

Based on mileage and condition (and what I have seen them on ebay go for), it would be somewhere around 10-12k. Most on ebay go for 6k or less, but not in this condition or mileage. But that is a pure guess.

Hey, my estimate was pretty close. It went for 12.1k. Someone got a beautiful car.

Nice project!


Subscribed! :tup:

My frame is still getting welded and done up. We're developing some pretty crazy stuff for this car, its going to be track ready when she's done. Coming together!!!

I'll post more pics soon.