Nissan story (or, I'm old)

[daan]

So I was digging out old pictures to try and scan them, and having lots of trouble with the computer. (different story-I'm getting sidetracked already. Jeez...) Anyway, I was thinking about how much nicer cars are today than they used to be, so I found the only pic of my Sentra wagon I had. That would be a picture of my sister, when I was teaching her how to drive about 1990 or so. The car had north of 100K on it by then, and a few holes in the fenders/floor. It was a leftover 83 that my *coughCHEAPcough* dad bought in 84. This was back when they still said "Datsun by Nissan" on them. SO my Versa was the most basic one I could get, and it still has AC, really comfortable seats, a wiper on the back window, enough horsepower to pass other cars, etc. The Sentra's option list was auto trans and "dealer installed pinstriping". That's it. No radio, we had to put that in ourselves. It had grey vinyl seats, a heater that barely worked from the time it was new, it felt like it had about 7 HP, it sounded like riding in a tin can. (Rain was especially fun, since it really sounded like we were inside a metal bucket or something). The tires were smaller than the spare on my Versa (155-80-13, they cost about $20 a piece to replace.) We ended up junking it because of all the holes in it, the heater clogged up (and you really needed it in WI in the winter) Also it just wouldn't idle. IF you took your foot off the gas, it stalled every single time. It ended up being a bad carburetor, they weren't adjustable so when they wore out/broke, you were supposed to just plonk a new one on there. We went thru 3 or 4 junkyard ones before realizing all those were just as bad as the one the car came with, and a new one cost $1200! Anyway 2 fun stories, I remember cramming 7 people in there to drive to Chicago (actually the far side of Chicago from where I lived, a 4-hour drive) to see a concert. The tail was dragging and I think I needed to fill the gas up twice because of all the weight. The other was my sister had the car at her BF's in Milwaukee, and the alternator died so she couldn't start it. It was in a bad neighborhood, so we didn't want to leave it until we could fix it, so we drove it the hour or so to my parents, with no alternator in the middle of the night. I had to keep the headlights off to get enough power to keep the engine running, but there was barely enough spark to power anything, so it wouldn't run over 40 or so. The person following us told me that flames kept shooting out the tailpipe from all the unburnt gas coming out EEK! Anyway I guess my point here was that the Versa is considered a "cheap" car now, but is still 10 times nicer than anything I've had to drive in the past, and gets just as good MPG as a lot of what used to be economy cars back then. Either that or I just wanted to tell all you young whippersnappers, "YOu know, back in MY day, we had it so tough..." Oh yeah,

[Knightro2]

Nice story. There is something to be said of the resiliance(sp?) of some of the older cars though. My dad was in the Navy and we got stationed in Stuttgart, Germany from 1986 - 1989. Just before we left my dad bought a brand new 1985 Dodge Caravan (like the one pictured below). It had a 4 cylinder engine and nice room for my parents, sister and I to travel around Europe in.

It didn't do too well on the Autobahn as we were always in the far right lane...what I called the "American Car Lane" going 85 and vibrating like hell while Porches and Mercedes were blowing our doors off going well over 100 MPH.

But, as we were going through the switchbacks of the Alps you'd see all those nice sports cars off on the side of the road broken down and/or overheating. We just putted along without any issues. We ended up keeping that van until about 1996 and it had over 300k miles on it. Still ran pretty well except for some engine pinging and having to clean the corrosion off the contacts in the distributor cap every couple of months.

Ahh...memories...I actually took my drivers test in that van because I bought the Bronco II before I was 16 and it was a manual. Didn't want to get nervous and keep stalling out. heh heh

[sooner4x4]

Great story, thanks for sharing the memories.

I learned to drive in a 1976 Subaru, 1400 DL. That meant a 1.4 liter engine, in the base model. No anything. No radio, no AC, vinyl interior. 4 speed manual. Back then, all wheel drive was an option for Subarus. This one was front wheel drive only. When revved to redline, the flat, horizontally opposed engine would make decent power, probably because the car didn't weigh very much. Cars have come a long way, and really, base model economy cars today don't cost all that much more than they did many years ago.

[BaldVersa]

Speaking of old.. i learned to drive in my sisters mustard colored Datsun B-210 hatchback.. anyone remember those?

[Gr8dave37]

Too funny!! I had that same Nissan Wagon Hatch as my first car. It was moms and when she got a new car I of course got the hand me down. It was an awesome car right up until I rear ended someone and totalled it.