datsun 310s

in 1981 Datsun had a hatchback 310. They also made a 2 door coupe 310, which looked like the same car from the centerpost foreward. This car also had a roll down rear window, which I thought was pretty cool (I wish they still made roll down rear windows on 2 doors).


Anyway, I have only seen 3 of these ever. I heard something that these coupes were only sold in Canada. Can anyone tell me anything about them?

A had an '82, bought new. There was a 310 "GX", the one with the funny roofline, but you could also get, confusingly, a GX trim level on the conventional 3-door hatchback; I got the latter in bright red with a grey corduroy interior. It looked like the contemporary Audi GT except for the Datsun's ugly grille.

Nice interior, great gas milage (high 30's to low 40's in the suburbs, higher 40's on the highway), but the handling and power were such a far cry (understandably) from my modded 510 that I started calling it "The Toaster" because the driving experience was so appliance-like.

My only technical complaints resulted in "they're all like that" responses: (a) too much driveline slop, going from off-throttle to on-throttle invariably clanked, and (b) valvetrain noise, which the regional Nissan rep said was due to the new "E" engine's (versus the old A15) aluminum head not dampening the noise as well as cast iron.

Two features I thought were top-notch: the rotary infinite-afdjustment for the intermittant wipers, set into the end of the stalk, and the slide controls for the rear quarter windows, placed at the end of the console where any occupant of the car could reach them.

The only mods I did was to add a radio, some stiffer shocks, and some Avon oversized radials on a set of Stanza wheels I picked up in a junkyard and painted with black wrinkle-finish paint. I sold it after 2 years, got maried, bought a house and needed something with more hauling capacity, so the 310 had to go.