1975 Datsun 1500 Ute - Reader Ride

By: Derek Radzikiewicz, Photography by: Dave Carey

Date: 05.03.2019

The faithful Datto was Derek's first car, and a labour of love

This was my first car; I got it when I was 17 years old. It was fitted with an A12 out of a Datsun 1200 ute, so I stuck the original J15 1500cc four cylinder in it and blew up a couple of four-speed, column shift gearboxes.

The ute now runs an L18 motor out of a 180B, backed by a short ratio, R30 Skyline five speed. It’s got a Dell’Orto carburettor and an exhaust that sticks out too far.

I painted the tailgate and pretty much removed the suspension, including doing a bit of a custom lowering job using a forklift. I think the left-hand leaf spring is having a bad day today; it normally sits better than this. The right side is heaps better.

It rides on a set of Enkei Apache 8 alloy wheels, which I imported from Japan. They’re 15x8s with a negative 28 offset, so they’re a bit aggressive. Aside from those few changes and the fact that nothing worked, it was exactly like this when I found it, right down to the original Les March dealer stickers.

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