510 (Third-generation Bluebird (510))

Katayama's Argument Yutaka Katayama was sent to the United States in 1960 to find out what Americans wanted from a small car, and returned with an answer Tokyo did not particularly want: economy was not the draw. What sold were European cars with some appetite for a corner, and the one he kept pointing at was the BMW 1600-2. As first president of Nissan Motor Corporation U.S.A. he pressed head office to send the next Bluebird to America with a larger overhead-camshaft engine rather than the pushrod units the range was built around. He got it: the L13 and L16 arrived in 1967 at his direct request, and the 510 reached the United States for 1968 at $1,996 with independent rear suspension - a specification that read like a European sports saloon at a price that did not.

The Engineering, and Where It Stops The third-generation Bluebird launched in Japan in August 1967, its soft-edged predecessor replaced by flat planes and a square glasshouse. Underneath sat a unitary steel monocoque on a 2,420 mm wheelbase, MacPherson struts and front discs, and semi-trailing arms with coil springs at the rear of the two-door, four-door and coupe. The estate did not get them: Nissan's own record for the W510 lists a leaf-sprung rigid axle chosen for load capacity, and several African, Asian and South American markets took leaf-sprung saloons too. The four-wheel-independent claim holds for the cars people raced, not for the one people loaded. The L16 is the other half of the story. Introduced at Katayama's request with an 83.0 mm bore and 73.0 mm stroke, it became the pattern for the L24 six of the 240Z - the same design with two more cylinders, an 83.0 mm bore and a 73.7 mm stroke. The Z that followed in 1970 was not a separate idea but this engine, and this argument, made larger.

Safari Nissan had entered the East African Safari Rally since 1963 without winning it. In 1969 twenty-eight Datsuns started and 510s took six of the top thirteen places, Edgar Herrmann fifth in a battered practice car from a ninetieth starting position. In 1970 Herrmann and Hans Schuller won outright in a 1600SSS, fifty-one minutes clear of another 510, from ninety-one entries of which nineteen finished. Nissan records it as overall, class and team victory, and as the first Safari won by a Japanese car. The high point of the 510's competition record belongs to the SSS, the twin-carburettor Japanese specification never sold in North America. Nissan's next two Safari wins, in 1971 and 1973, went to the 240Z.

Brock, Morton and the Two-Five Challenge Katayama backed racing in America on the reasoning that it sold cars, and put two teams on retainer: Peter Brock's Brock Racing Enterprises on the west coast and Bob Sharp Racing on the east. When the SCCA split Trans-Am into an over-2.5-litre class for the pony cars and an under-2.5-litre Two-Five Challenge for the imports, BRE entered John Morton in the number 46 two-door. Datsun took the 1971 under-2,500 cc manufacturers' title on a countback of race wins - no drivers' championship existed in Trans-Am until 1972 - and took the class again in 1972 with Morton as champion driver, against Alfa Romeo and BMW. Factory support ended after 1973.

The Cheap Way In, and Rust The lasting consequence was not the professional titles but what happened underneath them. A used 510 cost very little against a list price under $2,000, competition parts came through BRE at sensible money, and Datsun paid contingency money for SCCA wins - $100 for a Regional, $200 for a National. Datsun sedans took eight of the nine B-Sedan national championships between 1971 and 1979, and by 1978 a twenty-four-car Runoffs grid held twenty Datsuns. A generation of American club racers learned on this car, which is also why so few remain: the steel is thin, carries none of the corrosion protection that came later, and the survivors spent forty years competing with a racing paddock for the same shells.

Corrosion is the defining fault and the reason for the survival rate: of roughly 4,000 original UK-specification cars, fewer than ten are known to remain. The steel is thin and carries none of the rust-inhibiting alloys or coatings that came later, and cars from the salted American rust belt have largely gone. Floors, rockers and the sills beneath the front seats are the commonly replaced areas and therefore the commonly rotten ones. Against that, the mechanical package is unusually sound. The L-series four served in North America for thirteen years across displacements from 1.3 to 2.0 litres and is described by specialists as nearly bulletproof, with most cars passing 100,000 miles and many reaching 200,000 on ordinary maintenance; suspension and brakes are conventional and similarly durable. The faults that do turn up are usually inherited from someone else's work: badly executed engine swaps, cut-and-welded structure from racing or flare fitment, and thick filler concealing rot rather than repairing it. Mechanical service parts and aftermarket panels and floor pans are readily available; under-car structural sections are not, and that is where a cheap car becomes an expensive one.

Structure before everything. The bodyshell is thin-gauge steel with no rust-inhibiting alloy or coating, and the parts supply shows where the risk sits: exterior panels and floor pans are reproduced, while under-car structural sections are not made at all and have to be fabricated, so a car rotten in its rails or inner structure is a metalwork commission rather than a parts order. A magnet run over repainted areas will find filler that photographs will not. Establish which rear suspension the car has and that it matches the body: semi-trailing arms on two-doors, four-doors and coupes, a leaf-sprung live axle on the estate and on saloons built for several African, Asian and South American markets. A coupe outside Japan was never sold new there and needs import paperwork agreeing with its KP510 chassis prefix. Assume the car has been raced or modified until shown otherwise - look for flare installation and cut-and-weld work around the tunnel and strut towers - and price the return to standard if that is the intention. Engine swaps are normal rather than exceptional: the L18 and L20B drop straight in, and later Nissan units including the KA24DE and SR20DE appear regularly in current listings. Carburetted swaps give the least trouble; fuel-injected conversions using offshore-market engines are where poor work shows. The driveline itself is durable, so a bad 510 is nearly always a rust or workmanship problem rather than a mechanical one.

Reputable market sources do not agree on what a 510 is worth, largely because each tracks a different slice of the market. As of August 2026, classic.com records a market benchmark of $25,518 on a falling trend with an average recorded sale of $27,054, its highest tracked result being $35,000 for a modified 1972 sedan sold through Cars & Bids on 2 January 2026 and its lowest $5,200 for a 1971 station wagon project in December 2022. The Classic Valuer, drawing on a wider set of auction results and also read as of August 2026, gives a median of 19,085 pounds against a high of 60,475 pounds across 140 sold cars at a 66 per cent sell-through rate. Hagerty's market write-up, which carries no date on the page as retrieved, puts condition-#2 two-door sedans around $30,600, wagons around $22,100 and four-doors around $20,500. What the three agree on is the ranking rather than the numbers: two-door first, wagon rising fastest, four-door cheapest. Asking prices sit well below sold prices - a private-listing summary dated 18 August 2026 covering seven new listings showed an average ask of $11,667 against a median of $6,500, a market of projects rather than sorted cars.