It was the best $300 I never had.

Instead, I bought a 1971 Datsun 510. I was the second owner. I'm still the second owner, and that $300 was the difference between the life of a "Show and Shiner" and an Enthusiast. I have no intentions of ever selling "The Smurf". I did think about it once, but the terrible nightmare that followed (sold the car, wanted it back, new owner wouldn't sell) soon put an end to that idea. Not to mention the fact that I restored, and later sold, a 1970 2000 Roadster that the new owner had thoroughly thrashed within two years. I couldn't bear to see that happen to my 510.

But after all those years on the road, The Smurf (the name was given to him by a truck driver, not me) had gotten a little threadbare. I had restored him from the ground up in 1983 after my wife bounced him off a guardrail. All new gaskets, seals, upholstery and fresh Mercedes China Blue (hence the name) Imron paint. At the time, he was one of the finest examples of 510-dom around, and he stayed that way for at least a decade. But all things must fade. Even Imron paint. Three pairs of seats (each with their own set of mounting holes), various parts bolted, screwed or riveted in place (more holes) and three less-than-attentive drivers hitting me in the taillights had made him less than restorable.

But I didn't want another car. I'd gotten attached to that VIN number. The Smurf has the old blue and yellow Oregon plates, and the state couldn't pay me to put either of the other options on his bumpers. (Oregon obviously doesn't have any competent artists in the State Penitentiary.) And, of course, selling him just isn't an option. So any new car would have to incorporate most of The Smurf.

Let's see… all the VIN number plates are riveted on and the dash isn't that hard to remove. There are the stamped numbers in the firewall, but that can be dealt with. (Just my luck there's some overzealous DMV guy reading this…) So the decision was made to recreate The Smurf in his own image and likeness. I found a $100 shell that needed a new door and fender but was otherwise very sound. (except for the roof, which was a lovely panel of rusty swiss cheese. But hey, the floors were good!)

So, after a couple of weekends stripping the donor car and off-ing the nearly-dead 1600 and the automatic transmission, I was ready for the initial metalwork. The car was trailered to a local bodyshop for installation of a new roof and taillight panel (doing away with the license plate recess). The trunk and gas locks were filled, and a myriad of small holes that wouldn't be needed were welded shut.

Since this car will one day have V6 (VG30) power, it seemed prudent to reinforce the shell. I welded all the seams in the engine compartment (two-inch sections) as well as welding a brace between the rear shock mounts. I also seam-welded around the rear wheel wells in anticipation of coil-over shocks. A front strut bar will be built once the major components are located up there.

At this point, I had a custom rollbar built. A couple of 2" x 6" x 1/8" plates with captured nuts, were welded into the roof perimeter frame. I then had the main hoop built to bolt into that as well as the floor. The crossbrace goes to a reinforced area on the center tunnel instead of all the way across, giving me a 2+1 configuration instead of a two seater. It's a two-part roll bar with the seat belt bar and the crossbrace as a bolt-in "Y". Probably a little overkill, but it really strengthens the car and gives me a great place to attach that four-point harness.

All the panels and the shell were then sandblasted. This is where you find out that the perfect door you've been hoarding for 5 years isn't as perfect as you thought. Neither is that fender. There were also at least 8 Bondo-filled mirror holes in the driver's door. How many mirrors can one 25-year-old car need!? Three hundred and sixty dollars later, I had a clean, rust-free shell that was ready for bodywork. My friend Tim, the body and paint guy, went to work. He might have known what we were in for, but I didn't. We used Sikkens paint this time around. It’s supposed to be one of the better paints, and another friend that worked at a paint shop got me a deal on what I thought would be all the materials I'd need. Boy, were we wrong. Let's just say I got to know the salesman at the paint place really well and he knew my Visa number by heart.

To shorten the story considerably, we finally got paint on the car. The most interesting part about this was watching the blue paint go on the body shell. All this time, I'd been trying to convince people that if I moved the VIN numbers and license plates to the new car, it would be Smurf. Hell, I wasn't even convincing myself, let alone anyone else. But as I watched Tim spray that first coat of blue (same color as Smurf, but now 1970 Fuji Blue, color #911, and therefore proper) I felt a psychological switch being thrown. This really was the same car. Smurf II was suddenly mine. Yeah, it's a little sappy, but why the hell am I spending a fortune on a 510 if I'm not absolutely nuts anyway?

So Tim's part was done. Three-and-a half-months of spending all his spare time on my car was starting to wear on both of us. He was glad to be finished, and I was almost as happy to see him go and get my shop to myself. Amazingly, we're still friends.

Now it was my turn. Not that I'd been sitting around while Tim did his part, but there was still a lot to do. All I had to do was completely reassemble a car in a little over a month to be ready for The Mount Shasta All Datsun Meet. Not a problem, right? Sure. Except all those remaining pieces had to be cleaned and either painted or plated. Did I mention how many pieces there are on one of these cars? Not to mention a lot of R&D on the custom stuff. Are those 320i mirrors really going to fit? Nobody else is going to build my flush-mounted marker lights. Where am I going to run the cable for the trunk release? You get the picture. It was going to be a fun-packed 40 days.

The fuel-injected L20B has been operational since the fall of 1995. All the wires and hoses went where they were supposed to, but they didn't look all that great doing it. The stock wiring harness had been modified (IR Alternator, bigger wire, etc.), and I needed to re-wrap it. Almost every wire in the EFI harness had been modified, and I still needed to wrap it as well. All the formerly yellow zinc plated parts were replated. Latches, striker plates, brake lines, etc. I pulled the engine down to the long block, then scrubbed and painted it. All the aluminum parts that came off were bead blasted. Every part that wasn't aluminum or plated was sanded and painted.

The interior was completely revamped. I installed 1/2" closed-cell foam under a new gray headliner. Thirty-six square feet of sound-deadening tiles were applied to the floors, firewall and doors. New carpeting was custom fit, and I had a set of Toyota SR-5 wagon seats, as well as the stock rear seat, reupholstered. I installed all new gaskets and weatherstrip, as well as a heated backglass and a new windshield. Five months after the first moldy piece of carpet was tossed in the trash, the car was on the road and running. And I was completely burnt out on anything automotive. Almost half a year of four-hour evenings, forty-hour weekends, and missed vacations take their toll. I think it was better than stretching the restoration out, but restoring a 510 (or any car) from the ground up is a big commitment that shouldn't be contemplated lightly.

Was it worth the effort? Only a 510 enthusiast would think so. I figure $10,000 as a conservative estimate to build another car like it, and on a good day it MIGHT sell for $6000. But that's not the point, is it? Let's face it, one of the major reasons for driving a nice car is the attention it receives. Not too many Civics or Miatas get the attention Smurf II does.

I just need another five or six hundred strokes of the ego to justify him . . .