This Dime has been off the road for the last 14 years and has just 44,000 miles on it. This 1970 Datsun 510 is listed here on craigslist in Goldendale, Washington with an asking price of $8,500 firm! This is potentially a good bargain. Mr. John Chaney, a loyal Barn Finds reader, sent this one in; thanks, John!

The 510 was sold from 1968 through 1973 as an arm of the Datsun Bluebird. Like the Datsun Fairlady, Americans preferred less dainty names for their somewhat dainty vehicles. The 510 won its class in the 1971 and 1972 Trans Am Series and has continued to be popular with racers from weekend warriors to pros alike. For a car with an original list price of about $2,000, it had a lot going on, and it still does.

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This “poor man’s BMW” looks like it’s in great shape but it needs work on the brakes before you can drive it. No worries on that, pages 4-7 of The Dime, Quarterly will fill you in on rebuilding the brakes on this car. This is a two-door sedan with less of a slope to the c-pillar and rear window than the two-door coupe has. I almost prefer the look of the two-door sedan because it just highlights this car’s overall boxiness even more than the coupe does. But, I love both profiles of this super cool, little car.

It’s hard to tell from these photos but it looks like this is possibly a #831 White car and some of the photos make it look like it may be #822 Beige. In either case it’s not shouting, “Look at me!” It will be a nice sleeper once you tear into those hidden performance modifications. Or, keep it original if you’re a purist like I am. I would restore this car back to such an OEM-stock standard that Nissan would be hounding me to buy it for their collection. You simply will not see an unmodified two-door 510; and even rarely will see an unmodified 510 of any bodystyle what so ever. These things are a blank canvas for owners so that’s why I would want one to be bone-stock. Call me crazy, and most of you already do; but I would take a 510 over a BMW 1600, the car that Nissan was said to be gunning for when they designed this car. Not that I don’t love the BMW, too, but there’s just something about these funky Japanese cars that turns my crank.

Other than a typical center dash crack, which can be amazingly repaired to like new again, the interior looks great. There are no seat photos, however, so be prepared for the worst there. Since Craigslist ads can have many, many more photos than are typically shown, I’m always leery when sellers aren’t showing something, especially when it’s free to do so.

Does this floor mat look newer than new?! Nice. If only the entire car were that nice, but then the price would be double what it is here. Yes, you’ve surely noticed it by now, this car has the optional 3-speed automatic transmission. I know, right?! Dang, that’s a letdown, isn’t it?! But, it’s workable, we can get through this.. stay strong!

There isn’t a huge trunk here but it’s in nice shape. You can see some surface rust around the edges but this is most likely an original Northwest US car and it’s wet there. Everything is original here according to the seller, who is the second owner. Even the paint was applied in Japan so nothing is hidden by previous repairs. This car was for sale for $12,500 about a year ago so maybe it didn’t sell and the owner figured out that the market wasn’t quite where they wanted it to be and dropped the price, or whomever bought the car is selling it again, at a huge loss. You’ll have to call the number in the ad to find out for sure.

Here is the Datsun 1.6L 4-cylinder with a couple’three ticks under 100hp. This isn’t a factory powerhouse with a 0-60 time of a little over 14 seconds but, hey, that’s twice as fast as a Subaru 360 is! It looks clean as heck under that lid, eh? Although, it should be body-colored under there so I’m not sure if it’s been pulled and painted or how it ended up being black under there instead of body-colored. That makes me wonder a bit about the originality claim. Here is a 510 owner who painted his engine bay in satin black so “it won’t get dirty as fast”, in the first two photos here. Maybe that’s what happened with this car, who knows. In any case, this is a super rare car, there aren’t many two-door 510s left on the planet that haven’t been cut apart and turned into someone else’s dream car. My dream car would be to have this thing restored to bone stock, although with a 5-speed manual. Would you keep this one original, or would you do a 5-speed swap, or would you modify everything on this car?