buy it/////////
>From: "Daniel D. Kelson" <kelson@fedka.ociw.edu>
>Reply-To: "Daniel D. Kelson" <kelson@fedka.ociw.edu>
>To: datsun-roadsters@autox.team.net
>Subject: Update on LancasterCA 1966 1600
>Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2000 22:22:35 -0800
>
>Dear List Occupants,
>
> A week or so ago I queried alluvyas about the following ad:
>
>http://www.collectorcartraderonline.com/addetail.html?4204182
>
> Alas, nobody knew anything about it...
>
> Let me fill you in on the situation, after talking to the
> owner on the phone, and after going out to see and drive
> the car.
>
> It's SPL311-03509, with engine R09646. Recall that the
> advertisement was for $4k. This will be important later.
> The car is cherry red, with all the chrome trimmings in
> place and spotless. The paint job was done by the previous
> owner, some 20+ years ago. The current owner has had the
> car for 18 years, during which he put on about 3k miles.
> The car now has 137k miles, which coincidentally is the
> same number as my 1991 Corolla. The car has some Z mags
> on it and does not have the rear Datsun 1600 emblem
> anymore. The previous owner(s) must have discarded it
> since there are no obvious markings where it might have
> been removed post-painting. Speaking of the paint, the
> paint job still looked good but there were a few small
> cracks in the paint here and there. 20 years of desert
> may have done that. No rust. No rust. No rust. Seemingly
> straight, too.
>
> The interior is in good shape. The dash is flawless. The
> heater duct on the passenger side is split in two, but hey
> who needs heat in the Mojave Desert? The seats, carpets,
> floorboards, glovebox, door panels, rear shelf, seat belts,
> chrome trim on the gauges, the rear view mirrors, are look
> to be in wonderful shape. The speedo is way out of whack and
> the clock doesn't work. The other gauges seem to function fine.
> The little booty that surrounds the gearshift is gone so one
> gets to enjoy the view of passing asphalt. Padding had been
> added to the dashboard. The turn signal level had a little
> more play than one would like but maybe that can be easily
> tightened by someone who knows more about these cars than
> someone who has so little experience with them. The original
> radio was replaced by an AM/FM/tape deck and a couple of
> speakers were put in the sides behind the seats.
>
> I got it probably up to 60mph on the backroads of Lancaster
> for quite a while and the temperature stayed around 150ish.
> The clucth and gearbox feel great. The car may be idling too
> low as the car would stall when coming to a stop if the choke
> wasn't out. Car needs a tune-up but the motor clearly ran
> quite strong. Since it hasn't been used a lot in the last 15
> years, would be good to replace some hoses/belts. Owner hadn't even
> registered the car after 1990.
>
> The top is old, and has not been used in a long long time. As
> a result, it is a bit cracked and dry, with the rear window
> quite dulled. One of the fastners is missing, thus leaving
> a small hole which prevents one from have the top sealed
> at all. Probably should just have the top replaced. The boot
> cover has a couple of small tears in it but functions, inasmuch
> as a boot cover functions. No tonneau cover to be found, but
> hey since the front tonneau fastners were covered by the dash
> padding, it wouldn't have been easy to put the cover on.
>
> Spare was in the trunk, but no jack or lugwrench was present.
>
> The original owner's manual was there. Chiltons was there.
> And the Datsun Sports Car Handbook and Service manual was
> there. Sweet.
>
> It appeared that within the last three days the headlights
> decided to stop working. Our guess was a bad fuse but we couldn't
> successfully locate the fusebox! Wasn't in the glovebox, and
> we couldn't test to see if it was under the rear shelf since the
> rollbar had several bolts going into the shelf.... The owner's
> going to try and find out what's going on with the headlights...
> Also the reverse light didn't work... didn't find out why but
> maybe it's a bad fuse too. Directionals functioned appropriately.
>
> Needs new tires, too.
>
> On the phone with the owner, I feigned ignorance of the asking
> price, claiming I didn't have the ad in front of me. New
> asking price of $3500 was voiced.
>
> So... one would like the following things before using
> it as a daily driver (i.e., I'd like to see the following
> fixed up before I use it to commute):
>
> (1) tune-up
> (2) working headlights, reverse light
> (3) new tires
> (4) jack, lugwrench
> (5) working speedo would be nice
> (6) new top since it does rain occasionally between long beach
> and pasadena
> (7) maybe new battery?
> (8) maybe new boot cover too?
>
> Other items would be more cosmetic, so I wouldn't want to
> knock a counter-offer down by much for a non-working clock.
>
> Before any of you decide to run up to Lancaster to snatch up
> the vehicle... let me pose the following:
>
> (A) I don't think the guy has noticed the wealth of information
> on the net about the value or pricing of these cars
>
> (B) The owner can clearly be brought down below $3500 based on
> reasonable arguments regarding costs of "repairs" etc
>
> (C) I am looking at recouping about $2k for my 1991 Corolla
> (unless one of you wants to pay more for it) and may not be
> able to convince certain people to spend more than $1k on
> top of that (bummer), and that likely includes some of the
> initial repair costs. So maybe I can convince certain people
> to agree to spending $2500 with the knowledge that new
> tires/tune-up will need to be dealt with using another
> several hundred. Maybe. And then there's the new top, etc.
>
> So here are my questions to the great gurus of the list:
>
> (1) What would you pay?
>
> (2) Anybody feel like earning a couple of beers at the next
> SoCal Roadster Run by checking out what appears to be
> a car in pretty darn nice shape? Lancaster is about an
> hour from downtown LA.
>
> Am I forgetting something...? Hmmmm. It sure was fun to drive
> and quite peppy. Gave a much smoother ride than my mom's miata.
>
>Thanks mucho,
>Dan Kelson
>
>P.S. As I forgot to bring a camera with, I cannot post any photos
>of the car. Doh!
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Daniel D. Kelson kelson@ociw.edu
>The Observatories http://www.ociw.edu/~kelson
>Carnegie Institution of Washington 1 (626) 304 0285
>813 Santa Barbara Street 1 (526) 235 9486 (PCS)
>Pasadena, California 91101-1292 1 (626) 795 8136 (FAX)
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
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