MY FEEDLY

Datsun 510 SSS Coupe – The Japanese Car That Became A Rally Legend

This is an original Datsun 510 SSS, known in most world markets as a member of the Datsun 1600 model line, it would be this car that would help put Datsun on the map for many buyers in Western counties thanks in no small part to the car’s significant successes in both rally and circuit racing.

The Datsun 510 And The SSS

Datsun released the 510 model in the North American market in 1967, it was clear that they had developed the new car with no small amount of inspiration from the BMW 1602 model family from Germany.

Both the Datsun 510 and the BMW 1602 featured unibody constriction, a single overhead cam four-cylinder engine, independent MacPherson strut suspension in the front and independent, semi-trailing arms in the rear. Both cars featured the more boxy styling that was rapidly becoming popular, and both would prove surprisingly adept at racing.

Datsun offered the 510 in four major body types, four door sedan, two door sedan, four door station wagon, and two door coupe. Engine sizes varied depending on model and year, from 1.3 litres up to 1.8 litres with the most desirable model being the one you see pictured here – the Datsun 510 SSS.

Above Image: The 510 SSS is the higher-performance model that was fitted with a sports camshaft and dual side draught carburetors.

The 510 SSS was fitted with a high-performance camshaft and twin SU style Hitachi side-draft carburetors, it produced 109 hp versus the 96 hp from the regular 1600cc model, and the SSS proved immediately popular with racing drivers.

It would be a Datsun 1600 SSS that would win the East African Safari Rally with Edgar Herrmann at the wheel, and another 1600 SSS would win the 1970 Round Australia Trial (the Ampol Trial), a tough event that sent cars on a circumnavigation of Australia that was thousands of miles long.

Other Datsun 510s would win the 1971 and 1972 SCCA Trans Am 2.5 Championship in the United States, and the 1982 and 1983 Australian Rally Championship.

Today there is a strong global fanbase for the 510/1600 model family despite the fact it left production all the way back in 1973. Finding original uncrashed cars that haven’t been consumed by rust can be problematic, and locating numbers-matching examples of the Datsun 1600 SSS is something of a holy grail.

Above Image: The 510 Coupe is a two door car with a swept back rear roofline, giving a more sporing profile than the standard car.

The 1971 Datsun 510 SSS Coupe Shown Here

The car you see here is an proper SSS, not a car that was converted later in life. It’s still fitted with the desirable 109 bhp 1.6 litre inline four cylinder engine that’s now fitted with upgraded carburetors.

A small number of period correct upgrades have been applied, including the 14 inch Speed Star (SSR) Mk 2 alloy wheels, the above mentioned carburetors, lowered suspension, modern gauges for monitoring engine vitals, and modern Dunlop Direzza rubber on all four corners.

The surging popularity of Japanese sports cars, particularly uncommon examples like the SSS has been showing no signs of slowing in recent years. Many of these cars were passed over by collectors for decades until recently, with their prices now climbing to levels where they probably belong.

The SSS shown here is currently being sold out of Hong Kong via Collecting Cars, the seller is responsive in the comments providing people with quotes for international shipping. At the time of writing the bidding is sitting at £1,600 with seven bids cast and four days remaining on the auction.

If you’d like to read more about it or place a bid yourself you can click here to visit the listing.

Images courtesy of Collecting Cars

The post Datsun 510 SSS Coupe – The Japanese Car That Became A Rally Legend appeared first on Silodrome.

from Silodrome https://silodrome.com/datsun-510-sss/
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The Beachrunner – A Land Rover Series 2A Restoration By Oliver & Dobson

This is the Beachrunner, it’s the first in what will be a series of restorations by the team at Oliver & Dobson who are based in Sydney, Australia but originally hark from Britain. This is build #001 for the new outfit however one of the founders has previously restored seven Series Land Rovers – and his first car was a Series 2A with a Rover V8 replacing the original four-cylinder.

The plans for the Beachrunner were simple, the two men wanted to create a seven-seat Series Land Rover that would be perfectly suited to taking groups of friends to the beach for surfing, fishing, or camping expeditions.

Once they had settled on what they wanted to build they set about finding a suitable Land Rover to use as a starting point. The key difficulty with this was that the year was 2020 and much of Australia was locked down to due the Covid-19 pandemic.

Traveling to see Land Rovers was off the cards and so they decided to take a gamble on a 1967 Series 2A SWB Landy that was being offered for sale in the rural town of Goulburn located 195 kilometers (121 miles) south-west of Sydney.

Buying an old vehicle sight unseen is always risky, and in this case luck wasn’t on their side – the old Land Rover was in far worse condition than they had been led to believe after decades of hard farm use:

“It was a non-runner and, whilst largely rust free, it really needed much more work than we anticipated. It had clearly been well used and abused over the years with many rough farmyard repairs. None of the body panels were straight, we actually ended up having to replace every panel except for the bonnet and radiator panel – even the floors had to be replaced because they were buckled. It was during the strip down that I really started to feel we had taken on too much of a project. Note to self, always view future projects in person.” – Jack Dobson

When it came to this rebuild, perhaps the pandemic was a blessing in disguise as it meant there was nothing to do but get on with the job at hand. I’m going to turn it over to Jack here to finish telling the story of this unusual Land Rover:

The vehicle was stripped right back to the bare chassis and rebuilt from the ground up. All the mechanicals were either replaced with new or rebuilt. Since you can no buy many of the body panels these had to be sourced second hand from all over Australia. It was hard work and cost a lot of time tracking things down.

The vehicle was rewired with a custom loom that looks original but has additional features to support a modern sound system and wireless charging. The original sealed beam headlights were replaced with modern halogen units and all other lights were fitted with discrete LEDs (we are yet to find LED headlights that look in-keeping with the vintage look).

Build 001 started life as a truck cab with three vinyl seats in the front and an open rear. This configuration was ditched in favour of a full soft top and leather seats front and rear (three in the front, four in the back).

Old Land Rovers came in a very limited choice of colours. We decided we wanted to go with a complete colour change so all panels were stripped to bare metal before being painted in Audi RS6 Nardo Grey. The purists may be horrified but we feel it looks fantastic, complemented by black trim and wheels.

The wheels and tyres that came with Build 001 were small diameter and incredibly skinny – they really do not fill the wheel arches nicely. In their place we fitted Ex-Australian Army steel rims and Maxxis Mud Terrain tyres.

The two men are now hard at work on #002, a Land Rover Defender that’s being built for a client in the United States. If you’d like to contact them about getting a vehicle built you can click here to visit their website.

Follow Oliver & Dobson on Instagram here.

Images by Pat Nevard

The post The Beachrunner – A Land Rover Series 2A Restoration By Oliver & Dobson appeared first on Silodrome.

from Silodrome https://silodrome.com/land-rover-series-2a-restoration/
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1990 Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1 – The Affordable American Supercar

The Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1 (C4) was released in 1989 as a home-grown American challenger to the dominant supercars of the day – the Ferrari Testarossa, the Lamborghini Countach, and the Porsche 911 Turbo.

At its heart, the ZR-1 Corvette is powered by an engine that was developed not in America, but over in Britain by Lotus. General Motors bought Group Lotus, the famous English performance car manufacturing firm in 1986 and co-developed the ZR-1 package with them, including the engine, braking, steering, and suspension systems.

The original plan for the C4 ZR-1 was for it to be the fastest production car in the world, this didn’t come to pass however the final production ZR-1 would break seven international and world records at a test track in Fort Stockton, Texas in 1990, all verified by the FIA.

The Lotus-developed engine in the car was dubbed the LT5, it proved to be a remarkably resilient engine given its complexity and power output which ranged from 375 to 405 hp depending on model year.

The LT5 is an all-alloy V8 with double overhead cams per bank, four valves per cylinder, fuel injection, an 11.0:1 compression ratio, and a unique induction system that could shut down half the intake runners when in low power mode for fuel efficiency.

This engine compared favorably with the V12s used in the Testarossa and Countach which produced 385 hp and 374+ hp respectively. The other performance specifications also held up well, the top speed of the ZR-1 is ~180 mph, the same as the Testarossa and 5 mph less than a comparable Countach.

The 0 to 60 mph dash can be dispatched in 4.9 seconds in a C4 ZR-1, the Testarossa takes 5.8 seconds to do the same and the fastest production version of the Countach does it in 4.7.

Above Image: From the outside the C4 ZR-1 looks almost the same as the regular model, however its performance potential is vastly more impressive.

The LT5 engine proved difficult to build and assemble, so much so that Chevrolet didn’t have a factory capable of building it. Instead they contracted the engine building to Mercury Marine who had plenty of experience working with complex all-alloy engines.

The modifications made to the C4 ZR-1 were limited to the LT5 in the engine bay, the vehicle was fitted with a unique 6-speed manual transmission developed by ZF called the ML9. Power was sent to the limited slip differential rear end and out through the P315/ 35ZR-17 Goodyear Eagle Gatorback tires to the asphalt.

The Bilstein-developed suspension system was somewhat similar to the system used on the Porsche 959. It was called the FX3 system and it used a gas-over-oil shock absorber that allowed the driver to electronically control the flow of oil inside the hollow center shaft. This gave the car six damping settings in each of the three driving modes: Touring, Sport, and Performance.

The C4 ZR-1 also came with the UJ6 low tire pressure warning system and an ABS braking system developed by Bosch.

The rear end of the car was notably wider than that on the regular C4 Corvette however there were very few external clues that the car you were looking at was something special – a criticism that was made at the time by drivers who wanted there world to know their car cost twice as much as a normal C4 and had supercar levels of performance.

Over the course of the 1990 to 1995 production run the ZR-1 came in two major iterations, the earlier cars with 375 hp and the later cars with 405 hp. The engine had been upgraded in 1993 by Lotus to take the challenge to the Dodge Viper which had been introduced in 1991 with a 400 hp V10.

A little over 6,900 examples of the ZR-1 C4 Corvette were built during its production run. After it was discontinued in 1995 Chevrolet wouldn’t have another Corvette capable of matching its performance until the release of the Z06 C6 Corvette in 2001.

Above Image: The quad cam 32 valve V8 is capable of between 375 and 405 hp depending on model year – on par with the Ferrari Testarossa and Lamborghini Countach from the same era.

Today the C4 ZR1 remains one of the best bang-for-buck performance car bargains in America. Good examples can be bought for under $30,000, some selling for under $20,000, largely due to the lack of popularity surrounding the C4 Corvette in general.

This does seem to be slowly changing as 80s-era cars become Radwood cool, and you have to wonder if the C4 ZR-1 is poised to see a rapid gain in value when it’s rediscovered by the car community at large.

The 1990 C4 ZR-1 Corvette Shown Here

The car you see here is a first-year model from 1989 (1990 model year), it’s once of just 3,302 built that year and it’s accumulated only 3,335 miles on the odometer since new.

With its black over black color scheme the car has an almost Knightrider feel to it, and it comes with all the bells and whistles you’d expect including power steering, power disc brakes, air conditioning, tinted glass, power windows, locks, and seats, and a Delco Bose cassette stereo.

If you’d like to read more about this car or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing. It’s due to roll across the auction block with Mecum mid-May with no reserve.

Images courtesy of Mecum

The post 1990 Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1 – The Affordable American Supercar appeared first on Silodrome.

from Silodrome https://silodrome.com/1990-chevrolet-corvette-zr1/
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Garage Find: Aston Martin DB6 Vantage Needing A Restoration

This is 1970 Aston Martin DB6 was ordered new with a Vantage-specification engine, raising power output to 325 bhp from the 282 bhp in the standard car.

The car was left parked in a private garage for decades and it only came to light recently with the passing of its owner, it’s in time capsule condition wearing its original color with what appears to be its original interior in place, and of course it’s still fitted with that numbers-matching, Vantage-specification engine.

There can’t be many Astons of this vintage still sitting in barns and dust covered old garages so this one represents a potentially unique opportunity for a person looking to buy and restore one of the most lusted after British classics of its era.

The Aston Martin DB6

The DB6 was released in 1965 as the successor to the Aston Martin DB5 – arguably the most famous car ever built by the company due to the model’s heavy involvement in the James Bond film franchise over the years. With the development of the DB6 the aim was to improve passenger comfort, trunk space, and to reduce rear-end lift which had been a problem for the DB5 at higher speeds.

Above Image: Just 71 examples of the DB6 Vantage were made and this is one of them, preserved for decades in garage storage.

The distinct visual similarity between the DB5 and DB6 was no accident, the DB5 was an understandably popular car offering British luxury motoring to both a local and worldwide customer base.

The engineering team began development with a DB chassis that had been lengthened by 2 inches and they developed a body with a slightly higher roofline for better headroom. A discrete rear lip spoiler was added to reduce lift and it was decided to keep the live axle rear end used on the DB5 to reduce complexity.

Despite the added size the DB6 weighed in at just 17 lbs more than the DB5 and it offered notably more comfort for rear seat passengers. The DB6 Mark 2 was released in 1969, this updated version offered fuel injection and slightly flared wheel arches to accommodate slightly wider wheels and tires.

The most sought after variant was the Vantage-specification car, these were powered by a modified version of the Tadek Marek-designed DOHC straight-six with a higher compression cylinder head and triple side draught Weber carburetors bringing power up to 325 bhp at 5,500 rpm.

Aston Martin would keep the DB6 in production from 1965 until 1970 after which the next DB car wouldn’t appear until the release of the DB7 in 1994. The DB6 would be the final in the original DB line of cars, named after David Brown who bought Aston Martin in 1946 for £20,500 and set the company on the trajectory that largely made it what it is today.

Above Image: The interior of the car is in time capsule condition.

The Garage Find Aston Martin DB6 Shown Here

As mentioned above, this DB6 has spent decades tucked away in a garage and it’s now in need of a full restoration to bring it back to its former glory. This is one of just 71 built by the factory to Vantage specifications when new – many others were converted from fuel injection to Vantage specification in later years.

It’s believed by the former owner’s relatives that this Aston was in storage for approximately 30 years and so it will clearly now need a full body off restoration. As an original Vantage DB6 it’s a highly sought after classic and it represents the ultimate evolutionary form of the original DB series Aston Martins.

If you’d like to read more about the car or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing on RM Sotheby’s. It’s due to cross the auction block later in April and the price guide is £140,000 to £180,000 which works out to approximately $192,900 USD to $248,000 USD.