What sort of things should I be looking for? What is a fair price for a solid fixer up vs a driver. How much are the pristine ones worth? Are they easy to work on and get parts for?
I have done a couple of searchs on the forum and think it's a great resource.
Thanks

The Main question to ask more than anything is how much are you willing to spend or how much do you have?

It may seem like a great idea and beleive me i thought i knew enough about the costing and the car to get by with $12 grand and im up near $30K now...

But Back to your questions..
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What sort of things should I be looking for?
Main thing to look for in most datsuns is RUST (surface rust is only cosmetic and should not be a deterrent) but the main things are going to be found with the floor pan or the front wheel arches - If looking into a ute make sure to check the inner of the rear quaters of the tray beacuse it can be a notourious issue and can be a real pain to fix (but most certainly fixable)

What is a fair price for a solid fixer up vs a driver?
Now it really depends on the condition of the car and the engine hell some people on here have got great bargins even myself picked up my second ute for $3000.00 with an A15, 5 speed box no serious rust on the body but the floor pan was shot had rego on the car and its a blast. In saying that you could just have it ghetto as and cruise around and put some cash and work into it as it goes. But do you want a car running and have the status of driving the Datsun or have it sitting in your shed for the next year on stands as mine has been??


How much are the pristine ones worth
By pristine it depends what your meaing?? Are you meaning a one owner datsun with low miles with no rust in original condition or a worked datsun 1200 with an SR20 running a GIANT T88 turbo setup with paint and interior??
It Depends on the car and work its alot harder to find the "pristine" original owner with all original panels and miles and even then its hard to tell the cost comes down to the owner any where from $10k - $30k i guess and the same goes for a worked datsun with say an sr20 it comes down the how much wrench time and hard labour has gone into the car i.e look at alex's mad dat purple 1200 worked to the #OOPS# house witht the best of the best and i think he's asking $27k on car sales..

Are they easy to work on and get parts for?
They most certainly are easy to get parts for and quite cheap - but still in saying that it depends on the part and whats already in the car. Body part wise such as a tailgate or quater panels looking around $120 - $200 depending where you look and buy.. Can get remanifactured bumpers and what not but the hard to find things are the rare parts such as genuine GX parts, dash boards and numerous other little parts like the chrome but the major things can easily found.. If wanted you can still get crate A15 engines and what not from japan

Hopefully this helps you a little but if you tell us a costing and what exactly your looking for and how you want it to look run and all the other little things we can give you a better answer

i am in the process of building a 1200 ute with a ca18det conversion...

i would recommend to anyone looking for a datsun to find something that is close to what they are wanting and spend the money buying something already completed...

dont get me wrong the project is fun but its a lot of time and money...

just my 2c....

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You also have to be careful that you don't inherit someone else's problems.