Today, March 11, is Datsun Roadster Day. Many remember the Datsun 240Z or 510 as the first Japanese car to win over American customers, but the Datsun Fairlady Roadster actually paved their way. The SP(L)311 (1600cc) and SR(L)311 (2000cc) was the better-performing, more reliable alternative to British roadsters like the MG B, and automotive gurus who knew a thing or two about cars gravitated toward these early examples of Japanese sports cars.
We recently discussed how the esteemed Bob Sharp started his racing career in Datsun Roadsters, which simultaneously helped Nissan get a foothold in the American Market. However, another automotive legend who recently passed, Gene Winfield, also has a connection to a Datsun Fairlady.
Winfield passed away March 4, 2025 at the age of 97. He rose to fame in the 60s kustom car scene alongside contemporaries such as Ed Roth, George Barris and Dean Jeffries. His wild, candy-colored customs were the bedroom poster dream machines of the era. His most famous creation, the Reactor, made appearances in several 60s TV shows including Star Trek, Batman, Bewitched, and Mission: Impossible.
Winfield also designed vehicles specifically for film and TV. He helped establish the dystopian world of Blade Runner with his vehicular creations, he hand-build the Starcar from 1984’s The Last Starfighter, and was responsible for the symbol of Big Three decay that was the 6000 SUX in Robocop. But any kid could own a piece of Winfield’s work as well, because he also designed many model kits for AMT.
In a 2020 episode of Wheeler Dealers, the hosts travel to the Mojave Desert to buy a Datsun Fairlady Roadster, and the owner is none other than Winfield himself. They end up buying the car from Winfield for $8500 after negotiation down from the asking price of $9000. We could only find a few clips from the show, but after a bunch of work on the steering box, brakes, suspension, and exhaust headers before selling it for $14,000.
We’re not sure if the buyer was informed about the Datsun’s celebrity ownership history, but the Winfield connection is surely worth a premium. In the end the Wheeler Dealer hosts called it “what should be the best of British, but was made in Japan.”
Images: Datsun.org, Wheeler Dealers
Prior to buying my NA Miata back in 2005, I was looking at all car options. I was working in San Jose at that time and stumbled upon Z-Car Garage one day after work. There, I saw a freshly painted black resto modded, short windshield Datsun Roadster with the SR20VE and RS Watanabe wheels. The guy was just ripping it up and down the streets, it was amazing. Not sure if that fed my desire for roadsters, but I sure looked on Craigslist harder that night.
The design / aesthetics of the Datsun (Nissan) Fairlady Roadster has have anything to be reminded of the Peugeot 404 convertible, with the link referring to the latter is shown below.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Peugeot_404_Cabriolet
But, apart from the discussion about the Fairlady Roadster, which is the talking point of this article.
While given that the Fairlady Roadster, like most of Nissan’s 1950s-1960s vehicles, were based on MG / Austin / Leyland / BMC blueprints, half of the technologies that Nissan have inherited from other car manufacturers, especially from those that Nissan acquired like Prince in 1966, were derived from Peugeot as accordting to what I read about Prince’s pre-Nissan history before – before Nissan’s 1999 marriage with Renault there was even a time when Nissan had a role in using Peugeot’s diesel engines for use in the Europe market-only version of the Nissan Micra / March (K11).
And also, Nissan even had a one-off affair with Alfa Romeo – Peugeot’s current Stellantis partner – when the latter rebadged the Nissan Cherry as the Alfa Romeo Arna in order to revive the Italian AR’s fortunes – which also suggested that the design of the tailights found in the original Alfa GTV had similarities to those seen on the 240Z, 280Z and 300ZX, in addition, Nissan assembled and marketed the Fiat Uno exclusively to South Africa – thus these are reminders to show that Nissan have had affairs with the Stellantis group of today… (And speaking of that, Makoto Uchida have recently announced that he have already stepped down as CEO of Nissan…)