I have a line on a 61 Datsun Blubird - I have so much 1200 stuff I was thinking about using 1200 motor tranny and rearend and turn the car into an obscure Vintage Racer - any thoughts.

Tom Grosmann , Las Vegas

They have that "Columbo" feel about them. The early 60s cars. Kinda rounded. Early 60s stuff normally had bad suspension, not really designed for racing. But with a few mods, it would be an interesting project. I think you'd be better off with a bigger engine. A vg30ET/DET or at least a 2.0L engine would be recommended. They were pretty heavy, werent they?

Chris

I am with Dattodude..... if you were to go with anything less than 2ltr, you are going to do your project a serious injustice.

Luv the idea of the 61 Bluebird, when do we see some pic's ????

hehehe.... what sort of 1200 bits have you got to get rid of, i know a guy that might be able to help take them of your hands... hehehe

Cheers
Peddler

Well here is the deal - I checked this car out 4 years ago and passed. Well aprently he still has it. Since I have an extra A12 plus 5 or 6 cylinder heads one of which is ported and a 4 speed lying around I figured I could upgrade the old 1200 in the Bluebird with a A12.
Vintage racers here are just geeting used to Japanese cars so I can get away with something that looks similar. Also they wouldn't be aware the car has dums so I could mount disk breaks. The suspension geomtry is also easy to change since my friend builds single seaters he could make the Bluebird work. Also we have a couple of Tarmac rallies on the schedule , My Navie is 6 5" so he doesn't fit in the 1200 to well , Bluebird is a little taller
Now if I were looking to build a street rod: I could find a wrecked Titan pick up tube the front clip mount that V8 then we could narrow the rear truck axle and tub the rear and presto - Datto version of the Anglia drag car. Lets see 2000Lb car with 300 HP and gobs of torque , this could be fun.

Tom Grossmann , Las Vegas

PS hey peddler I do have a bunch of stuff in the garage that I should be rid of ,why I have three extra dash boards is beyond me. It may be a bit of a drive from your house to come pick this stuff up.

Doesn't the car need to have a racing history in the USA? I don't recall those cars being raced here ...

The rules for Vintage are very liberal here in the US. VARA simply recuires the car be 72 or older on production cars. When you get into newer racing cars they allow them if they have some significant racing history.

Tom

Lou Mondello the local (Melbourne) roadster freak has one with a pretty warm 2litre from a car sold as a Cedric out here.
The engine develops more power than the chassis can handle so its a pretty interesting drive in historic rallies. He's a top guy and I'll see if I can get his email address.