We had one back in the early 80's when I was a child.. She was reg XDL 747T & yellow in colour.. I remember dad replacing the head gasket I was only about 11 at the time.. All four of us (mum dad & brother) went to Scotland & Wales in it from the Isle of Wight on holiday.. Great little car & I can remember my dad leaving his foot to the floor on a motorway & my mum screaming 'slow down' & I swear to this day I saw an indicated 105mph on the speedo as I looked forward from the rear seats.. Was a great little car & I've fond childhood memories of it.. Great video & a lovely unique restoration... :)
For a non-driver, and no car enthusiast even, this is suprisingly entertaining and informative. As a piece of film it is professional and slick too so all the boxes have been ticked. I am sure TOP GEAR will be after you as their new presenter and other DATSUN fans will be delighted to see this great little film!
Fabulous car. I was just reminiscing that it’s 36 years ago today that I bought mine. My first car and I passed my test on her so very fond memories of her. Love a Datsun 120A FII Coupe.
I had one of these and I loved it. Engine never let me down. Body work rotted like a corpse. It was the first car I owned that had a rev counter, I thought I was a rally driver! Nice vid, thanks for that. :)
I bought mine in 1981 and it was a 1975 model. I have just made a post on my Facebook page and said pretty much the same thing "If I could find one today in reasonable condition I would buy it" !!! Great Memories. I did 170km/h on the Autobahn from Frankfurt to Amsterdam Wrooooooom
Hello from a new owner of a 1977 Cherry FII sedan in Tokyo, Japan. Your coupe is such a great work of restoration! I admire your passion for your cute Cherry! Thank you for your hard work to keep this precious car lively for more long years to come :-)
Wow! I've only just found this video and the memories have come flooding back! My first car was the 120AFll coupe in metallic gold, no less! Reg No. PVH977T. I got it because my best mate, slightly older than me, has a red one AUA490S. Head rests, rev counter, tinted glass and a push button radio. Happy days. (and the only car I've ever had that will go as fast as the maximum speed on the speedometer!!) Many thanks for posting.
Richard Froggatt glad that you liked the video, and have good memories of the car. There’s really very few left on the road these days, this one is still going just fine ten years after I finished restoring her and I just took her out at the weekend after fixing the seized front brakes. I am currently working on a second car, bought only for parts, that hopefully should be good for returning to roadworthy condition.
My dad had a Cherry, sadly not the coupe though but I too thought they were great little cars. Very impressed with the film Mr Sissons, even more impressed with how the car looks. She's a beauty!!!
WOW, thanks for this. Brings back memories. This was my second car, and after a Fiat 126 this was luxury. Must say I wouldn't call the rear end weird, I'd reserve that for the Cherry saloon (hated that car). I'd call it streamlined and very practical and I couldn't understand why most cars didn't have such a rear end profile. Many cars nowadays you'll find have this type of rear end because it is the best compromise shape for maximum streamlining and interior space. In fact my present newly acquired car, the 2nd gen Honda Insight, is virtually an updated version of your Datsun, same dimensions aswell. At the moment I am restoring your Datsun's sister car, the Sunny 120Y coupe. They both had the same 5 bearing 1171cc engine but the Sunny was rear wheel drive and your Datsun is front wheel drive. I loved my little Cherry coupe. The hatchback body was fairly new in those days and it fascinated me that it could easily be changed into a van and you could even sleep in the back if needed. Even though it was a small car I remember the bonnet looked quite long from inside, and I loved that. You must have dropped very unlucky with yours as these Datsuns are more known for their reliability, and for knocking the British car industry into the ground partly because of it. I seem to recall the one thing I wasn't too keen on with my Cherry coupe was that top gear wasn't quite high enough (or is that low enough?), it was quite high revving even at 60mph. I consider them an absolute classic. Well done on restoring this one.
Hi Richard, thanks for the message, glad you liked it and nice to hear that you are working on a 120y, which appears to be a more popular model. When I wanted to buy my first car my dad asked me which cars I liked, but I didn’t really know anything about cars apart from there being two driving around on the roads that I thought looked really good! When he finally identified them for me one was my 120a coupe and the other was your 120y coupe! Lol (I then thought that there must be 26 different Datsun cars called 120 something!) It’s been 15 years since I bought the car and started working on it, and she is still working today. Hope yours is on the road soon. Cheers David
Ahh thanks for the memory. Passed my test in one of these. Easy to repair. Replaced the cluch on the roadside. But couldnt keep up with the rust. Sadly last thing I heard it was full of snow, windows smashed and left on an industrial estate. A cool car , low insurance costs so ideal for someone in their 20's. Paid £2,000 and had 20,000miles on the clock.
Hi, I've just spent the last couple of hours reading your re-build diary and then found the link to here, I have to say congratulations on doing such a fantastic job, it's great to see the cars of our youth still driving about, it's such a shame we have the rust demons so bad in this country of ours...
That is awesome! So good so see one of these old girls still on the road. I brought one back in the early 90s for a tenner (sans vinyl roof), raced it round farm tracks for a year or so, and eventually scrapped it (still got the number plate though).
This was the car I learnt driving. Model 1976 it was my father's old car that after an engine change I was driving from 1990 to 1994 . Nice looking but rusty.
When you watch The Sweeny and Minder there were very few foreign cars on the road, I don't think BL ,Ford and Vauxhall took the Japanese invasion seriously enough in the 70s. My first car was a 1978 Datsun 120Y estate (company car) , it undercut the Escort Estates and was more reliable .Korean cars (Kia and Hyundai) remind me of those early Datsun days, but this time it's Nissan feeling the pinch.
I’ve only seen two on creigslist in the past 3 ish years in the US, it’s definitely a unique looking car and I always wondered why it sells for less than a 510 shell.
@Spaceman042 Hey my dad has a b120 collecting dust in the garage.. Im old enough to drive so I want a car.. do you think is it worth the trouble to repair it and paint it?.... and if the answer is yes, any advice?-... Excuse my english i'm from Ecuador.. Cheers!
My first car was a 1978 Datsun 120Y 4 door saloon, the engine was very reliable but the bodywork just fell to bits. Is this cherry of yours still on the road in 2014 ?
Hi, I got one datsun cherry F-II 1977, exactly like yours, but i wonder where i can find spareparts for this car? Do you or anyone else here know where i can find parts?
@markmcl11 Thanks - I just spotted your car on the internet today, very nice ....... and it is certainly much smaller than the car they used on 'The Dukes of Hazzard'! lol.
i have looked all over the place looking for one, but i cant find one here in the US at all... anyone have any ideas about where i might be able to find one??? but, at least i still have a 280Z 2+2... love it, but would like to have a collection of Datsuns...
I got many of my parts from Ebay, also buying another junk 120a car just for spares, and joining the 'Datman' Datsun forum where I picked up details of people selling bits.
I heard 25 and 7 on the road, you never know how many are just hidden away but sadly it will still be a low number. I do have another one in pieces as a future project, so hopefully it will eventually be back on the road...hopefully when the tax becomes exempt!
@Alfreditop Hi, all I can say is that I found this car fairly easy to repair, I'm not a mechanic but with a half decent set of tools and a Haynes Car manual I was able to dismantle most of the car, including brakes and top of the engine, and put it all back together and get it working again. So I would advise you to try if you can get the spare parts. See my restoration diary on the internet, just search under Datsun 120A
Great car! I had a 2 door sedan 1978 F-10 ( in Canada), but I like the hatch body more. Mine got sold because it didn't have a good enough heater. After seeing your video, I'm thinking of getting another! They are really one of the most striking of the early Japanese cars. I remember thinking they were hideous when I was a kid, along with Citroens! Now I am restoring a Citroen DS and I love weird cars more than anything. Check out my car vids, if you like. Again, congrats on a sweet car.
We had one back in the early 80's when I was a child.. She was reg XDL 747T & yellow in colour.. I remember dad replacing the head gasket I was only about 11 at the time.. All four of us (mum dad & brother) went to Scotland & Wales in it from the Isle of Wight on holiday.. Great little car & I can remember my dad leaving his foot to the floor on a motorway & my mum screaming 'slow down' & I swear to this day I saw an indicated 105mph on the speedo as I looked forward from the rear seats.. Was a great little car & I've fond childhood memories of it..
Great video & a lovely unique restoration... :)
For a non-driver, and no car enthusiast even, this is suprisingly entertaining and informative. As a piece of film it is professional and slick too so all the boxes have been ticked. I am sure TOP GEAR will be after you as their new presenter and other DATSUN fans will be delighted to see this great little film!
Fabulous car. I was just reminiscing that it’s 36 years ago today that I bought mine. My first car and I passed my test on her so very fond memories of her. Love a Datsun 120A FII Coupe.
I had one of these and I loved it. Engine never let me down. Body work rotted like a corpse. It was the first car I owned that had a rev counter, I thought I was a rally driver! Nice vid, thanks for that. :)
my step-grandfather has that model but yellow/gold, i remember when i was younger riding this. great cars these times ya know (:
I bought mine in 1981 and it was a 1975 model. I have just made a post on my Facebook page and said pretty much the same thing "If I could find one today in reasonable condition I would buy it" !!! Great Memories. I did 170km/h on the Autobahn from Frankfurt to Amsterdam Wrooooooom
Hello from a new owner of a 1977 Cherry FII sedan in Tokyo, Japan. Your coupe is such a great work of restoration! I admire your passion for your cute Cherry! Thank you for your hard work to keep this precious car lively for more long years to come :-)
FII 1.2 honeybee rear lights and 1.0 square lights?
🙂🤪
Wow! I've only just found this video and the memories have come flooding back! My first car was the 120AFll coupe in metallic gold, no less! Reg No. PVH977T. I got it because my best mate, slightly older than me, has a red one AUA490S. Head rests, rev counter, tinted glass and a push button radio. Happy days. (and the only car I've ever had that will go as fast as the maximum speed on the speedometer!!) Many thanks for posting.
Richard Froggatt glad that you liked the video, and have good memories of the car. There’s really very few left on the road these days, this one is still going just fine ten years after I finished restoring her and I just took her out at the weekend after fixing the seized front brakes. I am currently working on a second car, bought only for parts, that hopefully should be good for returning to roadworthy condition.
Magnificent Presentation!!!! Beautiful car!!!!!!!! I need to try to find one myself now!!!!
My dad had a Cherry, sadly not the coupe though but I too thought they were great little cars. Very impressed with the film Mr Sissons, even more impressed with how the car looks. She's a beauty!!!
My son and I watched this video for I had a Datsun F110, at least that is what I remember the model name. Loved that car also.
WOW, thanks for this. Brings back memories. This was my second car, and after a Fiat 126 this was luxury. Must say I wouldn't call the rear end weird, I'd reserve that for the Cherry saloon (hated that car). I'd call it streamlined and very practical and I couldn't understand why most cars didn't have such a rear end profile. Many cars nowadays you'll find have this type of rear end because it is the best compromise shape for maximum streamlining and interior space. In fact my present newly acquired car, the 2nd gen Honda Insight, is virtually an updated version of your Datsun, same dimensions aswell. At the moment I am restoring your Datsun's sister car, the Sunny 120Y coupe. They both had the same 5 bearing 1171cc engine but the Sunny was rear wheel drive and your Datsun is front wheel drive.
I loved my little Cherry coupe. The hatchback body was fairly new in those days and it fascinated me that it could easily be changed into a van and you could even sleep in the back if needed. Even though it was a small car I remember the bonnet looked quite long from inside, and I loved that. You must have dropped very unlucky with yours as these Datsuns are more known for their reliability, and for knocking the British car industry into the ground partly because of it. I seem to recall the one thing I wasn't too keen on with my Cherry coupe was that top gear wasn't quite high enough (or is that low enough?), it was quite high revving even at 60mph. I consider them an absolute classic. Well done on restoring this one.
Hi Richard, thanks for the message, glad you liked it and nice to hear that you are working on a 120y, which appears to be a more popular model. When I wanted to buy my first car my dad asked me which cars I liked, but I didn’t really know anything about cars apart from there being two driving around on the roads that I thought looked really good! When he finally identified them for me one was my 120a coupe and the other was your 120y coupe! Lol
(I then thought that there must be 26 different Datsun cars called 120 something!)
It’s been 15 years since I bought the car and started working on it, and she is still working today. Hope yours is on the road soon.
Cheers
David
Ahh thanks for the memory. Passed my test in one of these. Easy to repair. Replaced the cluch on the roadside. But couldnt keep up with the rust. Sadly last thing I heard it was full of snow, windows smashed and left on an industrial estate. A cool car , low insurance costs so ideal for someone in their 20's. Paid £2,000 and had 20,000miles on the clock.
Hi,
I've just spent the last couple of hours reading your re-build diary and then found the link to here, I have to say congratulations on doing such a fantastic job, it's great to see the cars of our youth still driving about, it's such a shame we have the rust demons so bad in this country of ours...
I had a 100a and always loved these, but were very rare even in the 80s.
That is awesome! So good so see one of these old girls still on the road. I brought one back in the early 90s for a tenner (sans vinyl roof), raced it round farm tracks for a year or so, and eventually scrapped it (still got the number plate though).
David, EXCELLENT little video. Great fun! A nice little tribute.
Surprised this video isn't more popular, it's really good.
Very good cars, I always wanted a coupe
Long live datsun pride and restoration.
I had a 160j sss, how i miss that car....never knew at the time how special it was and gave it away...
Oh thanks for the memories. had a silver one. passed my test in it. rusted to bits in the end.
Update for those that have asked - this car remains in the same condition today - January 2016.
+David Sisson hello you can rear bumper or rear drum cover for sale;)
Hi,
Sorry but I do not have those parts for sale. I do have a selection of spare parts but I need those for repairs to my 2nd FII Coupe.
This was the car I learnt driving. Model 1976 it was my father's old car that after an engine change I was driving from 1990 to 1994 . Nice looking but rusty.
8 years of this video about an inmortal car.
Lovely. I've got one too but it's in pretty bad shape. Unfortunately I don't have the money to restore her... I'm glad you could restore yours. :)
When you watch The Sweeny and Minder there were very few foreign cars on the road, I don't think BL ,Ford and Vauxhall took the Japanese invasion seriously enough in the 70s. My first car was a 1978 Datsun 120Y estate (company car) , it undercut the Escort Estates and was more reliable .Korean cars (Kia and Hyundai) remind me of those early Datsun days, but this time it's Nissan feeling the pinch.
nice car! My dad's brother used to have a datsun 100a 4-door.
I’ve only seen two on creigslist in the past 3 ish years in the US, it’s definitely a unique looking car and I always wondered why it sells for less than a 510 shell.
i have a datsun b310 sedan.. drives great.. loads of fun... cheers on your datsun .. :)
@Spaceman042 Hey my dad has a b120 collecting dust in the garage.. Im old enough to drive so I want a car.. do you think is it worth the trouble to repair it and paint it?.... and if the answer is yes, any advice?-... Excuse my english i'm from Ecuador.. Cheers!
Lovely camera work, Spaceman!
Iv seen the odd 1 on Ebay. i had so many of these i can't remember how many… Hi Dave
サイズ拡大で快適さを増したFFの先駆
My first car was a 1978 Datsun 120Y 4 door saloon, the engine was very reliable but the bodywork just fell to bits. Is this cherry of yours still on the road in 2014 ?
You are lucky....take care of this beauty
hatchbacks ll never catch on!
I have the same datsun 120a f2 just missing starter, because they could take a picture starter
Hi, I got one datsun cherry F-II 1977, exactly like yours, but i wonder where i can find spareparts for this car? Do you or anyone else here know where i can find parts?
awsome, beautyfull :D keep this on the road :)
I had two of this Cars. My second and third Car in 1980/81
@markmcl11 Thanks - I just spotted your car on the internet today, very nice ....... and it is certainly much smaller than the car they used on 'The Dukes of Hazzard'! lol.
i have looked all over the place looking for one, but i cant find one here in the US at all... anyone have any ideas about where i might be able to find one??? but, at least i still have a 280Z 2+2... love it, but would like to have a collection of Datsuns...
Fantastic car but unfortunately also a fantastic ruster.
looking for the rear windows and rear light if somebody can help thanks
hi I have rear windows if you have rear bumper ;)
+Bart datsun no bumper but still looking for rear windows ..
I got many of my parts from Ebay, also buying another junk 120a car just for spares, and joining the 'Datman' Datsun forum where I picked up details of people selling bits.
The alternative was a BL mini - give me the Datsun anyday!
I want a 73 Ford Crapi 1600 XL dave...
5:50 Remember Cloth seas were a luxury? The solution was vinyl with cloth accents. tm
My first car was the same but red with black vynal roof and a full length sun roof XBH 850S
i hear there are total 21 left..6 on the road
I heard 25 and 7 on the road, you never know how many are just hidden away but sadly it will still be a low number. I do have another one in pieces as a future project, so hopefully it will eventually be back on the road...hopefully when the tax becomes exempt!
Design from outer space ...
Just remembered.. I got some wheel bearings for this if interested.
@Alfreditop Hi, all I can say is that I found this car fairly easy to repair, I'm not a mechanic but with a half decent set of tools and a Haynes Car manual I was able to dismantle most of the car, including brakes and top of the engine, and put it all back together and get it working again. So I would advise you to try if you can get the spare parts. See my restoration diary on the internet, just search under Datsun 120A
My grandfather has a car but equal has 5 doors someone I can give me information about this type of car
Datson 120 to f-II but with 5 doors?
Great car! I had a 2 door sedan 1978 F-10 ( in Canada), but I like the hatch body more. Mine got sold because it didn't have a good enough heater. After seeing your video, I'm thinking of getting another! They are really one of the most striking of the early Japanese cars. I remember thinking they were hideous when I was a kid, along with Citroens!
Now I am restoring a Citroen DS and I love weird cars more than anything. Check out my car vids, if you like.
Again, congrats on a sweet car.
nice!
I always blame the microphone! lol
Except for the sound that was totally pro.
Excellent stuff Dave. Although minor point; you really need to learn how to pronounce 'Countach'. ;)
this one is very quite, my 120a makes a lot more noise
cool car.
oh and countach is pronounced couuntash.
Nices
I am interesed about datsun 100a :V
Me to I might have one when I'm 16 or 17
Sound better Lamborghini countach :)
Well done! Nice piece of work and a lovely Datsun too... I have an original (Dutch) brochure of this Datsun on my website oudio.nl.
That{s a great lil car, but your video is somewhat depressing...
I hate cars, they are a pest. But this is different :) Yes, thank you.