Photo: Bring a Trailer
Say the word Datsun, and the mind immediately links it with the likes of the 240Z, brother to the Nissan sports car that gave birth to the whole Z-car breed. Very rarely, perhaps never nowadays, does the name Datsun bring up images of a pickup truck.
Yet there are such things around and have been for years. We're talking about the pickups the Japanese made from 1955 to 1997, the year when the Nissan Frontier and Navara came and kicked them out of production. The line started with the 120 and burned through several variants until it got discontinued. The 521, the family the truck we have here is part of, came into the spotlight in 1968.
It’s not clear how many 521s were sold in North America, but one other thing is: very few of them are still around. That means if someone would find the ideas and resources to transform a Datsun pickup into a worthwhile truck for modern collectors, money could flow.
It should all start with a cheap, still viable 521 example. We found one, auctioning on Bring a Trailer, and looking like it’s seen much better days. Light green over green, with small traces of chrome and not so small traces of rust, the pickup is offered at no reserve, and so far, with four days left to go at the time of writing, it seems to be worth as much as an average e-bike: $2,500.
The truck packs the original engine, a 1.6-liter inline-four paired with a four-speed manual transmission, and it seems to be working. As an extra, it comes with a factory-fitted bed cap, 14-inch wheels, and a floor-mounted shifter.
On the downside… well, for a shop or talented builder, rust, chips, and cracks are not downsides, but foundations it could be built upon. And, as seen in the attached gallery, there’s no shortage of foundations with this one.
It’s not clear how many 521s were sold in North America, but one other thing is: very few of them are still around. That means if someone would find the ideas and resources to transform a Datsun pickup into a worthwhile truck for modern collectors, money could flow.
It should all start with a cheap, still viable 521 example. We found one, auctioning on Bring a Trailer, and looking like it’s seen much better days. Light green over green, with small traces of chrome and not so small traces of rust, the pickup is offered at no reserve, and so far, with four days left to go at the time of writing, it seems to be worth as much as an average e-bike: $2,500.
The truck packs the original engine, a 1.6-liter inline-four paired with a four-speed manual transmission, and it seems to be working. As an extra, it comes with a factory-fitted bed cap, 14-inch wheels, and a floor-mounted shifter.
On the downside… well, for a shop or talented builder, rust, chips, and cracks are not downsides, but foundations it could be built upon. And, as seen in the attached gallery, there’s no shortage of foundations with this one.
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