When it comes to cool “small” cars, my list is pretty short. The Datsun 510 examples that raced in the Trans Am under 2.5L class are pretty much top of the sheet for me and that’s for multiple reasons. For starters, they looks awesome. They have this tight little boxy design, they have the big round headlights of the era, and like so many Japanese cars from this time frame, they kind of shrink down the American muscle car aesthetic into a really neat little package. Secondly, Peter Brock and his BRE team were the ones who took these cars to the championship in the early 1970s at the Trans Am and that makes them awesome, thirdly, they can be built into bomb-proof fast little bastards that weigh nothing, have cool old little carbureted engines, and lastly but not lastly Daisy Mags. Thats all, folks. See yourself to the door.

Kidding of course on the last part. This machine has been a race car for “at least” 20 years according to the ad and we believe it. Our “rough and ready” title was not meant to be disrespectful but rather to point out that this thing is not a show queen, it is a racer and as such it has some bumps and bruisers from all that time on the road course. The car is not as clean as a museum restored example of a BRE racer. There’s grease and grime on the suspension, etc. It was last raced in June of 2019 so that’s not too far back.

The engine has been hot rodded with larger bore pistons, more compression, a closed chamber head and valves from a 280Zx engine. The transmission has also been upgraded to a close ratio five speed. We dig the fact that this old school car has not rev-limiter and the seller simply says, “keep it under 8,000”.

A big set of sway bars, Koni adjustable shocks, multiple gear ratios shipped with the car, if you have always wanted one of these things to race, here’s your shot. They do not come up very often like this, already set up to hit the track.

What a neat little car!

eBay: This 1970 Datsun 510 is battle tested and ready to hit the track ASAP