If you haven’t figured it out already, this week is wagon week at RustyButTrusty. Perhaps it’s the influence of the loaner minivan this week, or the Jetta wagon’s return from the body shop, or the fact that an online search for pre-1975 wagons turned up a bunch of interesting results, but today, this series is continuing with a couple of older Datsuns with some interesting performance upgrades. First up is the obvious choice, this 1972 Datsun 510 wagon for sale for $3500 in Everett, WA.
As early as the mid-1950s, Ford was feeling the need to compete with small imported vans, most notably the VW Type 2 from Germany. Before they were able to release the 1961 Falcon-based Econoline, and Chevrolet got their Corvair Greenbriar on the market, Ford brought over the Thames 400E and renamed it the Thames 800. And so began the short life of one of the many American captive imports. You can certainly see they drew heavily on the Thames for the Econoline. Let’s check out this 1958 Thames 800 Estate for sale for $2000 in Boise, ID.
If you’ve spent any amount of time browsing the internet for cars, you’ve probably run into some of those crazy Scandinavian cars that take, say, a classic early Saab 99, drop in a later turbo engine, mate it to a quattro system from an Audi 100, and tweak it to make over 700hp. Well, we North Americans might not have as many creative builds that are famous on the internet, but they do crop up every so often. For an example of US ingenuity, take a look at this 1957 Volvo P210 Duett for sale for $3500 in Spokane, WA.
Rusty But Trusty 