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I dont know about that. My wags has the blanking plate and I can hardly see someone saying " No take the free radio out. I dont want it. "
And from what Andrew has told me about the previous owner, I couldnt see him sourcing the plate elsewhere, just to stick it in the glove box.

You could be right.Ii am sitting here reading a 1200 owners manual [5th edition, Sept. '72] & on page 12 it shows the dash layout Item 9 is 'Radio [optional]' I just don't remember ever seeing a 1200 without a radio in Australia. The two door Sedan that i drove in Fiji didn't have one, but that was there & this is here.

I stand corrected. Is your wagon a standard model, or a Deluxe?

I think its/was just a standard model.

Warranty book says it came from Capital Motors in Aurburn like all the others, But it was sold at C.C.Motor Mart in Mudgee

Capitol Motors were the NSW distributor. They ordered the cars in direct from Japan & took delivery of them. They specified what features were to be suplied & they sold them to the public through their dealership outlet on Parramatta road. They also supplied them to just about all the NSW dealers.

This same arangement existed in Victoria & elsewhere. Eventually all the state distributors were amalgamated under the Nissan Australia banner, although i think that they still acted as state distributors, except that they dealt with head office in Australia instead of Japan.

This would be why you see both names in your documentation.

Heaters? All american 1200s had them.

We only got Deluxe models (disc brakes, etc). The Coupes here appear to be Deluxe trim as well, but they don't outright say it on the car. The 2-dr sedans have "Deluxe" badges even with rubber mats and no radios.

The 1200 standard options were poor compared to the average american car, but were better than the 'stripper' cars Detroit was selling. So 1200 purchasers I imagine were satisfied. The 1200 was the lowest cost car sold in those years, much less expensive than a VW beetle or a stripper GM, Ford or Chrylser small car.

Three great things great about 1200s that Detroit didn't copy (correctly) until 10-15 years later:
- locking gas door
- inside hood release (making it more difficult to lose your battery to passersby)
- push/pull high-beams on turn-signal stalk (detroit tried to one-up this with pull/pull action, but silly them no one could tell by feel what position the lights were in)

On the subject of heaters, all american cars had heaters in the 60s and 70s. I'm not sure when the stopped being an option, maybe in the 40s? Every state has regular freezing weather except hawaii and florida. Even California ("hot land" in spanish) has mountainous areas where significant amounts of people live.

Most american sedans had no radio, as did (apparently) a few coupes:

Webb's 1200 Coupe

Closeup of the blanking plate (RHD and LHD plates look the same):


America got four 1200 radio options:

1. no radio
2. AM radio
3. AM/FM radio (one speaker)
4. AM/FM Stereo (two speakers)


AM radio. I believe there were different suppliers, including Hitachi and Clarion.

I have seen two versions of what sems to be the same radio. The diference was in the position of the two control knobs.

The general idea was to put the most commonly used On /Off & Volume controls nearest to the driver, so radios can be found with these on either the right or the left side. It looks like this didn't work out as i have come across LHD radios in Australia, although not necessarily Datsun ones.

We didn't get FM radios untill somewhere near 1980 as there were very few FM stations to speak of before then. I remember thay my '84 910 Bluebird wagon work-car couldn't find any FM stations untill about '86 or '87 in the area where i traveled

I remember when I'd go to my grandparents place in Taree. They'd just got their first FM radio station. Before that, the trip to grandmas was like taking a trip 10 years back in time. Nothing but marbles and cardgames. Radio and TV aside, many grandparents houses are like a trip back in time

I'm only slighly off topic