Lazy spotters thread

[Sir Snipes]

July 2018

July 2019. Didn't get the reg but must be the same one. Saw a bitchin whitw saloon too but was driving.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

On 7/28/2019 at 8:15 PM, HillmanImp said:

Actually, Datsun UK were a separate company who simply imported Nissan cars....

I think you may be confusing that with AFG, which was the UK importer. AFG had nothing to do with the Datsun name that went on the badges.

Datsun was a brand owned by the parent company Nissan, and was used internationally.

[Alan_Green]

On 7/28/2019 at 8:15 PM, HillmanImp said:

Nissan started their own company in the UK in 1991 and the head of Datsun UK lived the rest of his life in tax exile. 

But UK Datsuns became Nissans in, like, 1981 not 1991.   I clearly remember a playground argument between 2 kids. One saying he knew for a fact that the dealer would change the badges of old Datsuns over to Nissan if they ever went in for a service and that it had already happened to his auntie.  The other said he was talking bollocks.  Never did find out who was right.

[HillmanImp]

5 hours ago, Alan_Green said:

But UK Datsuns became Nissans in, like, 1981 not 1991.   I clearly remember a playground argument between 2 kids. One saying he knew for a fact that the dealer would change the badges of old Datsuns over to Nissan if they ever went in for a service and that it had already happened to his auntie.  The other said he was talking bollocks.  Never did find out who was right.

Yeah, they were still imported and sold by a subsidiary of Automotive Financial Group (under the name Datsun UK and later Nissan UK) which was a completely separate entity to Nissan in Japan but did change the name of the brand. 

I guess if you owned a Datsun you might want to change the name to make your car look more modern if you were that way inclined but I couldn't see the dealers wanting to bosh a Nissan badge onto a shonky old Datsun. 

[HillmanImp]

7 hours ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

I think you may be confusing that with AFG, which was the UK importer. AFG had nothing to do with the Datsun name that went on the badges.

Datsun was a brand owned by the parent company Nissan, and was used internationally.

No, I was just mentioning some trivia. Datsun UK was a separate company owned by AFG with the sole import rights for Nissan and Datsun cars. 

[5speedracer]

Datsun cars were better than Nissan cars, fact*

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[Floatylight]

Datsun cars were better than Nissan cars, fact*

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A school friends Dad had a Datsun Violet when we were kids, remember it being a lovely comfortable car..

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[Muniphobia]

I remember my Great Uncle having a Datsun and getting his tame mechanic to rivet plates onto the wheelarches to keep it going.  Although I don't think he kept it much longer as it was termally rotten anyway.

[Datsuncog]

My 1984 Sunny Coupé had a Nissan badge on the front, and a Datsun badge on the bootlid - seemingly to cover all eventualities. But it said Datsun on the V5 and on the tax disc, so as far as I was concerned, it was a Datsun.

I seem to remember something from a book I once had about the history of the Japanese motor industry, that the original motor company in the early C20th was called DAT, an acronym of its main investors' names. It made mostly commercial vehicles, though a number of DAT passenger cars were also built.

They then launched a small, sub-500cc car in the early 1930s which could be driven without a licence, and called it Datson (literally, son of DAT), before merging with a subsidiary of Kubota, to create DAT Jidosha Seizo Co. Not long after, the joint DAT-Kubota enterprise was bought out by the Nissan Group.

A contraction of 'Nihon Sangyo' - literally 'Japanese Industries' - Nissan was a huge multi-level investment group, with interests primarily in real estate, insurance, chemicals and mining. They merged DAT into their Tobata Casting business. They also changed the name of the small car to Datsun, as the word 'son' can also mean 'loss', and Nissan management didn't like it.

Nissan continued to use the Datsun name to sell passenger cars, which consisted mainly of Graham-Paiges and Austins built under licence, although they used their own Nissan branding on commercial vehicles, aircraft and static engines.

After WW2, private vehicle manufacturing slowed to a trickle but by the 1950s volume car production, using their own body designs and engines, started to take off.

From 1958, corporate philosophy demanded that domestic market Datsun cars were rebranded as Nissans. Following an acrimonious industrial dispute within the car manufacturing division, which dragged on and became a national scandal, Nissan management decided to kill the now-tarnished Datsun brand which seemed to be a hangover from the company's past. Like Toyota, it was felt that having the cars named after the parent company would inspire greater loyalty to the brand amongst workers and customers alike.

However, Nissan had just started to make forays into potential export markets with their small economy cars. And so the Datsun brand became used for export models only.

In 1966 Nissan Motor Co. bought out rival car manufacturer Prince, giving access to to Prince's upmarket Gloria and Skyline models. As part of the rather confusing Japanese approach to car dealerships, whereby individual models are sold only through dedicated showrooms, they continued to use the Prince branding for many years in certain dealerships.

In 1981, Nissan took the decision to phase out the Datsun name for its overseas market, as part of a globalisation strategy while seeking to establish a manufacturing base in Europe (finally ending up in Sunderland). Having seen Honda and Toyota become household names through their cars, it apparently rankled that the mighty Nissan Group was virtually unknown outside of Japan other than by foreign investors in their primary property and insurance businesses. The Datsun name had to die.

1983 was the final year for the all-Datsun line-up; 1984 cars like mine wore both Datsun and Nissan badging, and from 1985/86 the Datsun name disappeared altogether. The re-branding exercise cost Nissan something in the region of $500m, $30m of which was just changing the signs in the dealerships. Even into the 1990s, however, the Datsun name was still more readily recognised by consumers than Nissan brand.

 

Until in 2013, when the Datsun name came back in certain developing markets... 

 

[Aston Martin]

I got an F40 on my dash cam last week.

[lesapandre]

Filming in Greenwich London...these getting ready to be used... 

[lesapandre]

...Here. All foreground is part of the set - beautifully detailed with cinder road and faked cobbles. No idea what film - as usual it's all hush hush but the set was open as it is still under preparation. Lower right corner is 'streetlamp' waiting to go up. There is going to be a fairly big crowd scene in the offing as there was a tent city of dressing rooms nearby.

[angle]

If we're doing a Datsun-themed thread hijack, here's a spot from a few years ago, a 1932 Model 11 Phaeton which makes it the oldest Datsun in the world:

Its in the Toyota museum, obviously (which is amazing) 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

1 hour ago, lesapandre said:

...Here. All foreground is part of the set - beautifully detailed with cinder road and faked cobbles. No idea what film - as usual it's all hush hush but the set was open as it is still under preparation. Lower right corner is 'streetlamp' waiting to go up. There is going to be a fairly big crowd scene in the offing as there was a tent city of dressing rooms nearby.

Maybe not necessarily a film but a period drama for telly? There have been a fair few of those over the last couple of years....

Handbills on blackened brick walls suggests late Victorian at the least....

[lesapandre]

Could be telly yup or Netflix etc.  It's big budget I think because of the kit they had...and the tented city. Greenwich stands in for all sorts of places...often they just use the historic buildings as-is, but this time they are mixing fake and real on the same 'street'. The buildings are part of the University - as students now gone they are filming.

[lesapandre]

Meanwhile in Deptford more filming.

[Fumbler]

Some classics left to die. They were in the rear of the car forecourt Brother Fumbler and I collected the Land Cruiser from.

This Range Rover passed its last MoT in 2007 at 47891 miles. It's been here for a long, long time.

Such a shame as the interior is immaculate. Excuse the finger in lens and reflections thanks to awful camera technique.

The 740i was bought as a similar time, also passed its MoT with flying colours and includes the IN CAR PHONE!!!!!!11!!!!!!

 

Oh, and both are for sale too.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

32 minutes ago, lesapandre said:

Meanwhile in Deptford more filming.

Hopefully they'll remember to edit out the modern double-glazing in the house facing the junction....

[Zelandeth]

We had a Nissan Cherry 1.3SGL Maxima in the mid 90s...it felt like a limousine in terms of luxury coming out of a Nova.  This was on a C plate, and said Nissan on the grill, bootlid and documents - but Datsun on the steering wheel and stereo.

Was a lovely two tone metallic blue and silver with matching interior - aside from every bit of text in the cabin which was orange...which me as a ten year old found fascinating.  The sliders on the centre console which opened the rear windows were really cool.  Had a fantastic stereo by the standards of the time too.

Sadly it suffered a pretty major head gasket failure halfway up the M6 and my not mechanically minded father kept going till it stopped...which was when the spark plugs melted on cylinders three and four.  Despite having a lot of work done it never really ran right again. 

I'd love one now...was a lovely comfy thing and went really well.  Don't imagine there can be many...if any...left now.  C62PRS was ours if I remember rightly.

There were no markings on the gearknob...and I remember my father discovering about three days into ownership that there was a fifth gear!

[Schaefft]

2 hours ago, Fumbler said:

Some classics left to die. They were in the rear of the car forecourt Brother Fumbler and I collected the Land Cruiser from.

This Range Rover passed its last MoT in 2007 at 47891 miles. It's been here for a long, long time.

Such a shame as the interior is immaculate. Excuse the finger in lens and reflections thanks to awful camera technique.

The 740i was bought as a similar time, also passed its MoT with flying colours and includes the IN CAR PHONE!!!!!!11!!!!!!

 

Oh, and both are for sale too.

That E38 has M-Paras on. How much does he want for the car?

[Fumbler]

10 hours ago, Schaefft said:

That E38 has M-Paras on. How much does he want for the car?

Given how long he's had it, I don't think that much. I didn't ask for the price at the time but he does want to sell it all the same.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

12 hours ago, Schaefft said:

That E38 has M-Paras on. How much does he want for the car?

Some example asking prices here. The E38s listed seem to be all over the shop.

[Fumbler]

1 minute ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Some example asking prices here. The E38s listed seem to be all over the shop.

He doesn't want much from the info he gave me. It's sat there for ages.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

Just now, Fumbler said:

He doesn't want much from the info he gave me. It's sat there for ages.

Six hundred quid? The wheels alone are probably worth that.

[Schaefft]

I wouldn't necessarily use HonestJohn to get a price reference for this car. Gumtree with a filter set to price <£1000 gets you more comparable examples that are currently being driven.

[Fumbler]

Here's some from the Goodwood Bonhams auction.

Austin Mini rally car

Last 2 door ever made

Didn't know Frank Sinatra was a shiter! His last car apparently, and what a car! Chrysler LeBaron Town and Country station wagon. Oh, and it talks too.  Finally sold with no reserve after being for sale for 3 years.

[Skodfan]

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[Skodfan]

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[Skodfan]

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[AndySnapper]

I can see Dollywobbler in one of these Pembleton Grasshoppers

This one has a 2CV 'power plant'. Made a hell of a noise when it was driven past me later!

Andy