The Original Eyesore: 1971 Datsun 510
If you are at all a fan of the 24 Hours of LeMons, you must be familiar with the name Eyesore racing — this is the (only) team to win the trip to LeMans (in France) after winning the LeMons (the $500 junker race series). If you are a DT Radio fan, you might have heard legendary Sport Compact Car Editor Dave Coleman talk about the origins of the Eyesore name...and here is your chance to buy the original Eyesore in the rusty flesh. Find this 1971 Datsun 510 here on eBay bidding for $2,700 with 7 days to go, located in Long Beach, CA.
I usually don’t start with this, but for Dave’s car I’m gonna say something: Don’t buy this car. It is terrible pile of used up garbage that belongs crushed into a shoebox sized cube and shipped to China for recycling into something marginally useful, like a Harbor Freight exhaust pipe expander. Certainly the HF tool will fail the first time you attempt to expand a wet paper towel roll tube, but at least you won’t get tetanus (lead poisoning is another story altogether). Seriously. Don’t buy this car.
Sure, it looks heroic in the circa 2002 photos where it leaves rooster tails in blurred hi-res professional photographs…but fast forward a 15 years and there it is sitting forlorn in a muddy yard like a discarded big wheels toy. The paint has faded from its glory days and it now looks the color of bloody mucus. No thanks…good try with the nostalgia, Mr Coleman…if that is your real name.
Pop the hood and you are greeted with an SR20DE with an ECU tuned by Jim Wolf…and dang…this old bag of parts actually runs? Drives? Insane…amazing that this pile of bile can move under its own power. Hang on, did you say there is vintage racing footage of the 510 throwing mud around the 2000 Ramada Express Raceway?
Good grief, there is even actual footage of the legendary strong man doing an in-situ mechanical alignment with a 20 lb sledge. DON’T WATCH THE VIDEO, THE NARCOTIZING WAFT OF NOSTALGIA WILL MAKE YOU BID!!! TURN AWAY AND SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE, IT ISN’T WORTH IT…DON’T HIT THE BID BUTTON…
See another wretched pile of scum that you just want for some inexplicable reason? tips@dailyturismo.com
My eyes are truly sore after the "after" pics but that waft is unmistakable…I can smell the promise of tortured rubber squealing its protest to my deaf, helmeted head as I keep the long pedal fused to the footwell through that hard downhill left at Barber while the Miata on my inside dusts up two off and donates flashes of yellow to my flanks before the right rear digs into the leveling tarmac and I feel the haunches settle as he wells up and roars down the front straight…
In this. Hmm…narcotized I am, indeed.
I know Dave well — he is a good guy who won't B.S. you about this car. It will arrive exactly as promised…
Those high-res pictures are from 2011! The only thing misleading is that the car is lower resolution in person. I came soooooo close to rolling it that day… This day: edmunds.com/car-reviews/features/2011-nissan-juke-vs-1971-datsun-510.html
Wait, this is the 510 Dave keeps referencing when I ask him about SR20DE stuff? Excellent!
I'd insist on an evening of stories over drinks with purchase. He sounds like a really cool person.
Oh, and this would be the finest condition 510 for sale if in the northeast. Seems like a bargain.