My dad was the Ford dealer in Emporia Kansas, and in the fall of 1966 Ford was
on strike and he couln't get any new Fords from the factory. So when the
Datsun rep came calling one day, and offered him the Datsun franchise (all you
had to do in those days was purchase $700 worth of parts and a 3'x5' sign) he
took him up on it. I was a sophomore at Kansas University at the time, and my
driver was a Mustang. One day I came back to the frat house after class, and
found the Mustang gone and a light yellow '67 1600 in its place. I had driven
some British sports cars for short periods of from one week to a couple months
(trade-ins - hey it's tough being the car dealer's kid) Midget, Sprite, Healy,
but this was brand new and I loved it. I only had it for maybe three or four
months before my dad sold it out from under me. I was back in Mustangs (my
favorite was a '69 Fastback with a 390 V-8, four-speed manual and the first
set of red-line "wide-oval" tires to be seen on the KU campus. A campus cop
pulled me over once just to check out my tires!) until the fall of '68, the
beginning of my Senior year. That's when I got a new '69 2000 roadster (red,
of course) I was in love again, especially with the extra gear (5-speed) and
horsepower compared to the 1600. The speed limit on the Kansas Turnpike was
80 mph back then, and I could run that all day at 3500 rpm. I had a blast
with that car and oh the memories. I'd squeeze three in it lots of times with
one person on the rear shelf. Even in the dead of winter with the top up -
the guy in back had to scrunch up and duck his head, but it seemed to help get
extra traction in the snow. Janell and I got married 5/31/69 and we drove it
on our honeymoon. I went to work for Arthur Andersen in June and Janell and I
had to share the car since it was the only car we had at the time. Some days
I'd drive it to work, some days she'd take me. Then in the fall of 69 it
developed this quirky habit of not cranking over every now and then. We
always tried to park it on the downward slope just in case, and were able to
"bump" start it that way on several occasions. One day when I had it back at
the dealership checking this out, my dad sold it! And of all things, my next
car was a brand new Maverick 2-door.
I started working at the dealership in 1974, and one day in 1978 I think,
this buy breaks down on the Turnpike in a 2000 roadster (broken jackshaft that
runs the distributor) and we trade him out of it. The car was originally
yellow but the PO had painted it red, which was so badly faded it looked pink.
But the car was straight with no rust so I thought it had potential as a
"replacement" for my Honeymoon car. Our body shop thought I intended to
resell it right away so they did kind of an Earl Scheib paint-job on it and it
looked a whole lot better. I had the seats recovered and some new carpets
made for it. I have driven it about 300 miles per year on average since then
until this year.
In 1993 we were repainting a lot of Ford pickups under the Owner Dialogue
program (peeling clearcoat) and had almost an assembly line process going in
our body shop, so I had the Roadster stripped to the bare metal and repainted
a Ford Probe color, Rio Red Tinted Clearcoat.
In June 1996 I hit a deer at 70mph in it, but thanks to the fine folks at
Ralleye, got it back in fine shape again, minus a grille.
Thanks to this list, and a neighbor who bought a TR6, I've been inspired
even more this year. I drove it 1500 miles this year, and bought a complete
weatherstrip kit and interior kit from Fairlady Prod. and am now in-process on
another partial restoration. O yeah, and a chin-spoiler (front air dam) from
CDM and a Talbot mirror.
I'm excited for the new 350Z. I am now the Nissan dealer here in
Emporia, and I'm thinking of keeping the first one for myself. But not if my
wife says I have to sell the 2000 roadster first!
Tim North
Emporia, KS
SRL311-07074
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