As temperatures climb and summertime quickly approaches, it’s easy to imagine yourself behind the wheel of a fun-to-drive convertible. This 1967 Datsun 1600 Fairlady is available here on eBay with no reserve, and it certainly serves as a tempting example of this increasingly rare roadster.
This Datsun is available in Dade City, Florida with a clean title, with the seller claiming that this is a recent barn find that was sitting for a while prior to its discovery. Details on the roadster are somewhat scarce, but the advertisement does feature plenty of pictures.
Older Datsun models are notorious for rust, but this looks like it’s in decent shape. While there is some rust forming on the bottom of the doors, this one isn’t beyond repair, and the quality of the vehicle’s paint is impressive.
The seller even includes some photos of the vehicle’s undercarriage, which show some surface rust, but nothing too concerning.
The bumpers and trim pieces shine luminously.
Unfortunately, it seems that this example was in an incident where something scraped along the vehicle’s side, which caused damage.
Everything inside the small cockpit of this 1600 Fairlady seems to be intact, and for a 52-year-old roadster, it’s far from worn out. It’s especially surprising to see black seats that are completely free of rips and tears, and almost look like they were redone at one point.
Under the hood, you’ll find a 1.6-liter 4-cylinder engine, which pairs to a 4-speed manual transmission to drive the rear wheels. The engine does match the vehicle’s identification number, and the seller even includes a video of it running.
At the time of this article being written, bidding for this petite convertible is at $3,051. Do you think you could drive this diminutive Datsun roadster, or would you rather not go for a roadster this summer?
What should this eventually go for?
I own a 66 in this color combo. Fun cars to drive and reliable if you get them sorted out. Things to do on this one, I would say 6-8 K would be a good deal given the body damage. These cars are on the rise, a really nice one is in the 18-20 K, concours is bringing, believe it or not, 40K!! If you are really tall and long waisted you don’t want to get an newer one with the short windshield.
Congratulations on hanging on to it; I had one in the mid seventies and still miss it! At 6′ 1″, the shorter windshield wasn’t a noticeable issue (although I was a teenager!) and I thought was much more proportional to the cars lines than the taller/later one that came on the 2000’s (and maybe the later 1600’s?).
Nice little summer ride . Fix the side and enjoy.
Heavy unfinished bondo on passenger side quarter and rocker . Look at undercarriage photo and zoom to blue rocker area .
At one time I had 5 of these back in the 80’s getting parts for restoration was a pain. Wish I still had them.
Having just restored the motor and basically everything in the engine bay on a 1969 Roadster 2000, I’d say the right price on this one depends on what you want to accomplish. If you don’t care how it looks and just want a driver, you could be just a few thousand away from getting it road worthy after it’s spent that long sitting.
The fact that it idles is a good start but you could still be looking at a complete motor rebuild if there are undisclosed issues and regardless of the health of the motor, it’s likely that a lot of the supporting components in the engine bay need replacement – my car idled and gave me a good enough feeling about a 50-year-old car with zero rust before I bought it only to discover that basically everything inside the engine bay (and then, the motor) needed replacement/refreshing. I think other than the block, head, and alternator, I replaced everything in there – everything.
The parts for these cars are getting scarcer by the day and while you can still get rebuilt parts, OEM parts, and new stock OEM parts, they’re ALL expensive. Example: a refurbished brake master cylinder = $850 with core exchange. Yeah, I went for the $70 alternative, meant for the 510 platform and had to fabricate a new push rod to make it work. New set of gaskets because that’s probably a good thing to do no matter what? That’s another $500 and a lot of time in the garage. Want an uncracked dash for a later-model example? Yeah, go ahead and by a donor car in whatever other condition it might be, so that you can repurpose its dash.
If, on the other hand, you are looking at a restoration then this is NOT your car. The ONLY one I would consider in this shape to attempt a restoration would be a numbers-matching ‘67.5 Roadster 2000 with the hotter setup (cam, Mikuni carbs, larger oil capacity). You might make your money back after a frame-off restoration.
I think this one is a real gamble at $8,000 unless you’re prepared to lose quite a bit if/when you decide to resell it and you’d better be skilled enough to handle most of the mechanical work yourself. Without the rust issues and the bodywork and paint I’d be more comfortable at $8K for a driver project. The market is definitely on the rise and I doubt values will ever go down from this point, but a sorted ’67 1600 driver, i.e. one that you’d be proud to bring to your next C&C event, is worth at best $15K.
From a collectibility perspective here’s the pecking order:
‘67.5 2000 w/ Mikuni carbs
‘67.5 2000 w/ SU carbs
’68-70 2000 w/ SU carbs*
’65-67 1600*
’68-70 1600
*There’s some debate around personal preferences between these two in the pecking order. Some folks prefer the power of the 2000 motor while others prefer the looks of the lower windshield and dash of the earlier cars.
Knock knock, who’s there? A rod perhaps?
Can’t be A-Rod, he retired. :)
Only thing wrong with my 1600 was on the way home after buying it stopped for gas and found a 2000 for sale for $500 less! Between this and my Sunbeam Alpine was hard to pick which was more fun.