Nissan Takes a Cruise Down Memory Lane

A blast from the past helps trace its 'sport sedan' tradiition

By Bill McLauchlan

There are many ways to celebrate car culture and historic vehicles. One is museums, the other on the road.

For this year's Monterey Motorsports Reunion in California, Nissan is taking a pair of museum cars – a 1967 Datsun 411 and a more familiar 1972 Datsun 510 – filling the tires and fuel tanks and putting them on the road. Throw in a showroom-fresh 2106 Nissan Maxima and you've got a rolling exhibition called "The Evolution of the Sport Sedan."

The low-key tour featuring this trio of old and new sport sedans leaves Los Angeles this Thursday, August 13, to make the 300-mile (484 km) drive to the Monterey Peninsula, home of the 2015 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance and Monterey Motorsports reunion vintage sports car races.

The Datsun 411 and Datsun 510 helped establish Nissan on this continent, while the Maxima today continues as the flagship of the automaker's sedan lineup. The three vehicles should attract lots of interest from car enthusiasts from all over the world gathering for the weekend's various activities.

The sedans will be driven from Los Angeles to Monterey by a group of automotive media and Nissan employees, accompanied by a Nissan NV support vehicle – but no trailer. The leisurely pace will likely be set by the Datsun 411, which at 48-years old should provide quite a contrast to the ride, handling and comfort of the brand-new 2016 Maxima.

The next day, Friday, the trio will be on display in the downtown Carmel area. On Saturday, the road show moves the track for display there.

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The Datsun 411 (left) was produced from 1965 to 1967 and featured a body designed by Italy's famed Pininfarina studio and its styling shows strong hints of Alfa Romeo in many ways. It shared its 96-horsepower 1.6-litre inline 4-cylinder engine with the sporty Datsun 1600 Roadster and featured standard front disc brakes and 13-inch wheels and tires. Car and Driver magazine, in its May 1967 review said, "From what we were able to deduce, it handles creditably well, though its makers have a lot to learn about the subtleties of shock absorber calibration." 

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By the time the 411 was replaced by Datsun's new 510 model (right) in 1968, the Italian-designed body was gone but the blueprint was set for all future Nissan sport sedans. The Datsun 510 became known as nearly unbeatable on race tracks in both Canada and the US and was a popular alternative to European sport sedans in garages on both sides of the border. The 510 was named by Road & Track magazine as "one of the most important cars of the 20th Century."

Now in its eighth generation, the all-new 2016 Maxima (below) takes the nameplate's position as the '4-door Sports Car' to its highest execution ever. It features authentic sports car cues throughout, including low and wide proportions, powerful body sculpting, flared fenders and available machined-finish 19-inch  wheels. The standard re-engineered 3.5-litre DOHC 24-valve V6 is rated at 300 horsepower – more than three times that of the Datsun 411 and 510 engines – and 261 lb-ft of torque. The new Maxima also features a premium bespoke crafted interior, anchored by a driver's cabin that rivals luxury vehicles.

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The Maxima also offers an extensive range of safety, security and driving aids that will find favour with many more mature drivers, including Predictive Forward Collision Warning (PFCW), Intelligent Cruise Control (ICC), Forward Emergency Braking (FEB), Rear Cross Traffic Alert (RCTA), as well as Blind Spot Warning (BSW) and Driver Attention Alert (DAA).