In April I drove my Datsun Roadster from San Jose down to SoCal to run the Touge California rally hosted by Japanese Nostalgic Car. We had a blast and chronicled the grueling, 200 mile journey. Check out JNC’s fantastic coverage as well:
After completing the rally on Saturday, I originally planned for a Sunday visit to the Petersen Museum in LA on the way up to San Jose. What I didn’t envision was making a stop at Nissan Design America, and here’s how I got there!
While on the Touge I met fellow Datsun Roadster owner John Sahs. His gorgeous blue 1965 Datsun 1500 Roadster was hard to miss:
The 1500 was nearly stock, down to its G15 1.5L engine and rare, OEM hubcaps. In place of the factory 4-speed John was running a 5-speed from the burlier 2000 model, cleverly hidden by the original 1500 shifter/trim. John is on the left, wearing Datsun-matching shoes:
At the end of the rally we were treated to dinner at Mazda Headquarters. There I learned that John was a lead designer over at Nissan Design America! He suggested we take our roadsters to Nissan for a mini-photo shoot, citing the building’s interesting architecture as a nice backdrop.
Sunday morning I hopped in the roadster and drove a few minutes South to La Jolla to meet up with John. We took some fun photos. Although he didn’t bring his roadster, John was kind enough to show me around and I was thoroughly impressed. Thank you John!
I left La Jolla around 9:30am heading to LA for the Petersen Museum Japanese Cruise in. I arrived just as cars were leaving the venue, even missing my fellow SoCal roadster owners by a few seconds. The Petersen Museum has an enormous parking garage and almost each level was packed with eye candy both old and new.
Just an R34 Skyline in Bayside blue sitting on BBS wheels:
The Nissan/Datsun presence was fantastic! I was excited to meet Dominic Le, creator of this now-famous “hakotora”…
It is a 1974 Datsun Sunny truck with a Skyline front end, full SR20DET drivetrain, TE37V wheels and CF everywhere. Lots of details on this one! Dominic was featured on Jay Leno’s Garage.
4-door Hakosuka with rear, molded flares and barreled SSR MK2s:
Nissan Cedric 130 from the Petersen Museum’s own collection:
Bluebird Coupe and Hakosuka 2-door both sitting on Watanabe wheels:
S12 (200sx), S13 (240sx) and S14 Nissans:
Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Subaru all had great showings as well so please check out the gallery!
After checking out the remaining cars I continued my trek home to San Jose to complete my ~1300-mile, 3-day roadtrip! Found this S30 sitting behind a gas station off I-5:
Enjoy the pics, and stay tuned as I report from another April car event: The Solvang Datsun Roadster Show!