Jimmyray73

Ian from GearHeart shirts has added his 510 shirt design to spreadshirt, so we can get our favorite old econobox in a multitude of colors and shirt styles. If you're interested follow the link down the rabbit-hole: http://www.spreadshirt.com/datsun-510-t-shirts-C3376A14125344#/detail/14125344T109A316PC118492074PA174

Eh, I think it looks sorta like a mid 70's 510 knocked up a late generation Lancer after a 4 day drunken bender. It isn't the ugliest car I've seen (or driven) but it sure ain't the prettiest either. If the price is right I'll consider it, especially if it has a fun motor and gearbox combo.

Hey, always remember to breathe man. Part of the greatness of your stories is that you're still adding new chapters.

Awesome! Nice to see Datsuns out here in the rust belt.

If you guys remember the sweet 510 shirt and the Z car evolution shirt from Ian at GearHead shirts I have some news for you. His business got nailed with a BS trademark infringement attack by some crappy pseudo-punk "record label" and has had to change their name and re-shuffle the on-line presence too. He is now doing business as "GEARHEART SHIRTS" (because heart >head, according to one of his facebook posts. I contend that is very dependant on the head in question but that's for another time...). The new web address is: http://www.gearheartshirts.com/ To sum up: GearHeart shirts = good. Gearhead Records = awful, and only punk in the way my grandfather would mean it.

Heh, road salt around here was hell on my old 280. I tend to disagree about Cali being the worst place to own a Datsun, there are a lot more of them available there than here in Ohio.

Reminds me of my old beer tap collection...

A few close calls over the years: Spring of 1993 I'm on my way back to school in Bowling Green after a weekend at the parents' house. At that time of night US 6 was usually empty of traffic and Johnny Law in the big empty parts of Ohio so I was motoring along at a pretty good clip. I saw headlights in the distance and thought they were flashing brights at me so I eased off a bit. Then I realized they weren't getting bright and dim, the beams were interrupted. I dropped from 5th to 3rd and stood on the brakes, skidded to a stop in the middle of the road (the ditches are a car eating depth there) and I swear the last deer in the herd licked my passenger side window. Fast forward 9 years, spring of '02 and I'm renting an old farmhouse with a few friends in another part of rural Ohio. I'm on my way home from a fried chicken and beer run to the nearest town and I've got a '92 Plymouth Laser RS Turbo AWD. Needless to say the throttle was wide open once I hit the edge of town 'cause it was a straight shot down a well-paved state route to get home. The only curve and elevation changes were when the road went over the flood plain of a local river and as I come screaming down into that valley I see a big honking buck in the middle of the road. For the first time in my life I saw a deer turn tail and run away rather than freeze and get nailed. In 2 years of hooning that Laser around farm country I never really got near a deer, and that's a rare thing. I think they were freaked out by the turbo whistle. Fall of '04 (I think) and the Laser has been replaced by a Focus ZX3, and I've moved a little closer to civilization. It's still mostly rural though and I'm in a hurry 'cause work ran late and I have to get to the girlfriend's house for a family dinner. I'm doing about 85 in a 35 zone on a chip & tar 2-lane that follows the top of a river gorge when I see a herd of deer crossing the road from the treeline on the river side. There was nowhere to go off the road without hitting a tree at best. Somehow I managed to slip between two of the four deer I saw without hitting them, I have no idea how. The one that didn't get away: Last October I was on the way home from work at night and I'm going roughly 35 in a 35 zone. I know, I've slowed down a bit after all those close calls. The road drops down to a bridge over a creek about a mile from the apartment I was in then, and the area is a green belt of forest dividing a few housing developments. As I was cruising down the hill and passing an oncoming car a fat raccoon ran right out in front of me. Once the weather warms up again I'll be patching up the front fascia from the impact. Thankfully the little bugger only did cosmetic damage but my tC looks like it's sneering now.

Heh, just a pet peeve of mine, when people misspell "manual" as "manuel". It's like they're saying "I don't need to change the gears manually, I've got some random dude named Manuel to do it for me."

Hey it's got Manuel's 4 speed transmission! Did Manuel use a clutch? HA!

Good luck with the sale Benlt, she's a beaut!

I was once told by a wise man "Build a man a fire and you keep him warm for a night. Set a man on fire and you keep him warm for the rest of his life."

I like that bed man. If I weren't broke, across the country and expecting a kid I'd be on it like white on rice. Good luck with the sale and everything else.

Damn Bonvo, those pics are scary! Good reminder how things can go pear-shaped in a hurry no matter how good we are behind the wheel. Back to topic: I hinted at craziness to come when I got my Datsun, so here it comes... I picked up the Piewagon on St. Patty's Day 1992, a 1982 280ZX with darn near every option except t-tops and slushbox. She had 89K on the odo, I was the second owner (the dealer had sold it to a Doctor in 82 and taken it back in trade for a Maxima in 92) and it only took me a moment to fall for her. I had owned her for a week when I woke up to an ice-storm that left my whole county looking like a glazed donut. I was rolling south on an arrow straight road that served as the main artery for the local Ford plant, dodging snowdrifts and creeping along in 4th gear trying to keep the wheels from spinning on black ice. I spot some jagoff in an ugly beige brick of a Crown Vic coming straight at me since my lane is marginally clearer than his and I start to worry. To my left (where he belongs) I see snowdrifts. To my right there's a deep ditch (that I've been in on a BMX a few years prior). I make a few quick calculations and ease onto the right shoulder. I look at that square POS coming right at me and pop it down to 2nd without rev-matching and pop the clutch. When I feel the rear end start to get frisky I crank the wheel left and punch the throttle, just long enough to set up a slide that'll back me into the ditch and out of that Ford's path. I feather the throttle enough to stop the spin at the right angle then punch it as I feel things get bumpy. The drive wheels dig me in and stop me before I end up with the rear end underwater and I jump out when I feel the floor bump up as I grounded out. Looking back I don't feel too bad about backing into that ditch. 3 more feet and I'd have dropped into frigid water, glad that I didn't. AAA towed me out for free, and I got a day off school for it. The experience taught me a lot about how my car would react in adverse conditions (which helped save my ass later). I lost a good ice scraper when I threw it at the Crown Vic. He lost a back window when my aim was better than I expected. Little did I know that the next near-wreck would come about 12 hours later...

Late 91 or early 92, senior year of High School and I find myself in an 87 Mercury Topaz "GS" with a sporty looking trunk rack/spoiler and (most importantly) a 5 speed manual gearbox. It's just past midnight into a new day and I'm not so much driving home after dropping off several of my friends after a party (hosted by an exchange student living with a cop going through a divorce... License for mayhem!), what I'm really doing is more like flying "Nap of the Earth" along back roads a lane and a half wide and paved with tar and gravel (we call it chip 'n' tar here). After hanging that Topaz out at the ragged edge through a river gorge turned into a park and then driving the road that follows the cliff over said park like I was trying out for WRC competition I'm less than a mile from home but I'm approaching a stop sign at an intersection with a busy road that car haulers from a (now defunct) Ford plant used as their main artery to much of the country. I've seen people get clobbered there, I've seen people die there, I don't want to screw around there. I ease off the throttle a bit early and ease onto the brakes to make a leisurely and safe stop, but the results aren't what I expect. I feel resistance on the pedal, the calipers are trying, but the car iion isn't slowing appreciably. The intersection looms ahead as I'm now stomping on the brake pedal to no avail. My best friend is riding shotgun, and he shakes off his boozer-induced stupor log enough to ask "Hey, are you gonna stop there?" Clutch-foot and pull her down to 4th, then 3rd in quick succession; right foot pumping the brake pedal like it's a 2 dollar whore on judgement day and I know it won't make a difference. Only chance we have is to get through the intersection as fast as we can and hope nothing else comes through at the same time. I ask my old buddy Luke "You feelin' lucky?" and just stand on the throttle. Ford's 2.5 is a boat anchor, but I'm in 3rd and running as hard as that car ever will. We flash across the intersection about a second ahead of a Kenworth crossing the other axis and I can feel the suspension going from full compression to full extension s we catch air, then full compression again in a hurry. A mile or so later I'm still pumping the brake pedal and I end up pulling the parking brake as I cut across the yard to stop the car in my parents' driveway. How I didn't end up grounded forever as we sat in the front yard laughing at the steam coming off the brakes after sliding through Dad's yard and leaving ruts that by all rights should have flipped that shitbox Topaz, I'll never know. A few months later I got my first Datsun, and it only got crazier...