DRIVER PROFILE
DRIVER/OWNER: Neel Singh
AGE: 31
LOCATION: Auckland
OCCUPATION: Automotive marketing
BUILD TIME: Three years
LENGTH OF OWNERSHIP: Three yearsTHANKS: Dustin Ng at DNG Automotive, for
second-to-none workmanship and custom
fabrication; Daniel Wist, for the helping hand and
the countless hours spent sipping on jimmies
while piecing the Datto together; the Harold and
Kumar crew; Shannon Thickpenny; Jared Croft;
Tim ChaChaChaiii, Bedpost Wellington parts
runner; Whopper Performance — if you know, you
know; Circle Jerk Crew (CJC); and my mum (Bela),
dad (AJ), and big bro (Kelvin)PERFORMANCE
POWER: 130-plus kilowatts on the
butt dyno
FUEL TYPE: 95 octane
TUNER: Trust y screwdriverEXTERIOR
PAINT: Resprayed in Nissan Grey
Metallic by Slippers Refinishing
ENHANCEMENTS: Reproduction
rear bumper, reproduction
chrome sill trims, BRE chin lip,
Datsun Supersonic front grillethe
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Notice the electronic distributor or the relocated battery? Hell,
even the viscous fan has been traded in for an electric example.
It’s this attention to retaining just enough of the familiar pieces that
gives the appearance of a completely functional engine package
while tricking the eye into not noticing all the unimportant bits that
have been hidden away. It’s this effect that has created such a
striking engine bay, and that only continues when you step back
from the front end to take in the car as a whole.
The chassis-scraping ride height, which comes courtesy of
custom coilovers up front and custom-specced springs at the
back, is impressively proportional to the car’s smaller frame, and it
ultimately helps swallow the refurbished and widened set of SSR
Star Shark rollers that the Datsun sits over with ease. While much
of the body remains as it was when it rolled off the factory floor, the
factory lines are only complemented further by the new front and
rear chrome bumpers and a pairing of chrome sill strips. The SSS
Super Sonic–optioned front grille, in combination with an equallyas poignant chin lip that’s ripped straight from circuit racing, adds
a good whack of sharpness to the front end too. And, despite
already having been through the body shop before his ownership,
Neel has had the entire car hammered to an exacting millimetre
of straightness and resprayed in Nissan Grey Metallic to satisfy
his OCD. The inside of the cabin hasn’t escaped the same level of
attention either, with a pair of Datsun Competition leather buckets,
sitting over reproduction burgundy carpet, that matches the dyed
door cards.
No matter what angle you manage to catch a glimpse of it
from, it’s hard not to be drawn into the car and want to fulfill the
desire to see more and more. The finished product cannot be
described as anything but the paying of respect to old car style.
It’s careful enhancement of a car from a bygone era without
forgetting the pencil and paper that it originally came from and,
more important, one less example that will be lost to the passing
of time. Long live the kyusha!