Here’s a crisp little wagon with a long, confusing set of names. Officially, at least in Canada and the US, it was known as a 1978 Datsun 510 Wagon. It’s located in beautiful, dry, warm (not bitter) Tucson, Arizona and it can be found on Craigslist, or here on the CL archive. The seller is asking $3,200 or offer for this slightly-modified, slighter hotter than factory wagon.

Thank you, Arizona, for preserving so many vehicles; at least rust-wise. This little wagon sure looks good from the three or so exterior photos that the seller has provided. I can hardly believe that it has 255,000 miles on it! You can see that the wheels are not bone-stock and there are a few engine modifications, and there’s no question that the Datsun 510 has to be one of the most heavily-modified cars of all time. It seems like most 510 owner have modified their cars so that seeing any of them in bone-stock form is a rarity these days. I always prefer things stock and then I can make my own modification choices, or not. It’s like buying a house with a bunch of super-personalized touches by and for the former owner, it’s a tough sell sometimes.

The Datsun 510 from this era, 1977-1981, was actually a Datsun A10 Stanza, or a Nissan Violet. The boxy Datsun 510 that most of us know was really a rebadged Datsun Bluebird but was known as the 510 in the US and Canada. They were around until 1973 in the US. Nissan wanted to do somewhat of a throwback-Thursday (is that still a thing?) and sell cars to nostalgic 510 lovers so they rebadged the A10 Violet/Stanza for a few years, this is one of those cars. It wasn’t really that simple, of course.

Noooo! There it is, the dreaded automatic transmission. A 5-speed, as is almost always the case, would make for a more valuable and a more-fun car to own and drive. But, that same 5-speed may have led this car down a dark path of heavy-modifications and street racing and being beat almost to death over the last 40 years. You can see that this car does not appear to be beat in any way. Other than that missing horn button, I don’t really see a flaw on the car inside or out. I believe that the seats may have been vinyl originally, but these fabric seats have to be more comfortable in that Tucson heat. And, aftermarket AC? It’s strange to not have any photos of the rear of the car or the rear storage compartment, I’d want to see something from those areas, and also a couple of underside pics.

Seeing a Weber carb conversion is fairly common on a lot of early Japanese vehicles. The seller says that this Nissan L20B 2.0L inline-four was “modified to “hot rod” it, removed the smog parts, air pump, etc, but still have the parts if buyer wants them. Will not pass emissions as modified.” This engine would have had around 97 hp when new, but with the modifications they most likely added a few more horsepower – maybe as much as the AC took away. Who knows, I doubt if the next owner will dyno this car to find out. This looks like a really nice, rust-free car that hasn’t been beat to death. Have any of you owned a 510 from this era?