OK, ok, Short version ?
I'm Tim Corcoran. I'm 45 and my wife is Elisa. We have two teenage kids, a
girl and a boy. I'm sure they both would like me to teach them to drive a 4
speed. We live near Seattle on Bainbridge Island for the past 6 years. Prior
to that we lived near Dublin, Ireland for two years and before that in the San
Francisco Bay area. I see many roadster owners look like they are in the
software, electronics or engineering. Maybe we just tend to use the internet
more. I picked up an AS degree in Electronic Technology and worked mostly
repairing or installing machines used to make computer chips and for a time
CAT scanners. A lot of local, domestic and international travel in field
service, working in clean rooms.
I have only owned 1500's when it comes to Datsun's. My first one I got for
100 bucks from a junk yard when I was in high school. It was a single carb
1500 which I later discovered was S/N 00004. I put a 1600 in it. Those years
were fun. We drove on dirt roads, through a creek, "down to the river" with
beer and girlfriends. I took years to get clear title, racked up 5 or 7
registration tickets and had the pleasure of spending the night in jail for
"failure to appear". Finally worked it out. Later Mike Kerr put in a 2000 with
5 speed. That was fun. I blew out the rear end ultimately.
I bought another 1500 and traded rusty and thrashed S/O 00004 to a guy
named Gary Perez in San Jose, CA. The new one I bought was sold by a very sick
man who's old girl friend was given power of attorney to sell his things. I
was there first and a couple of younger guys showed up and she said she would
just take the highest offer. We started at 500, then 550, back and forth. That
was stupid. So she tells us to write our top price on paper and she will be
back in 5 min. I knew the other guy's did not know roadsters and I just told
them I had to have it. It was about the cleanest one I had ever seen. Would
they walk if I just paid them 100 bucks? Sure! We submitted our bids and I was
high bid by 25 bucks. The young guys followed me to the ATM machine and were
promptly paid off for their trouble. I got a very clean black 1500 with a bad
motor for 725.
I had the engine rebuilt and still own that 1500. My kids grew up with it.
I believe it was the first 1500 to drive to Shasta. My employer stored it for
the two years we lived in Ireland. My "employer" was actually a company my
wife and I helped start up some ten years previously. That company "went
public" while we lived in Ireland and we basically did pretty good. Sort of
the dot com thing before it became big news in the late 1990's.
So we settled in to Bainbridge Island. Nice area and schools. Ross Mullen
at Sports Imports did a frame off restoration on the black 1500. That process
took most of a year and in our loneliness I bought my wife ......a 1500! YA!
Mike Young had a pretty clean sora blue 1500. So we now have a his and hers
which we took to Shasta year before last. (note to self: never compete against
Elisa's car in a show.) Both thes cars mostly stay in the garage and only come
out when it's dry.
I have always preferred the 3 seat 1500 for it's simplicity, styling,
chrome and minimal use of plastics and clutter. I like that it is uncommon. I
feel it is and was advantageous to stick to one model from a parts and
maintenance standpoint. I have been involved with the parting out of one or
two 1500's and for 25 years or more have checked with wreckers and surplus
parts dealers. I have witnessed Nissan dealers stocking parts and then tossing
parts. I've seen the parts get harder to find and the prices for parts rise.
To some extent I have tried to stay ahead of the price curve and glad I did. I
and others have second sourced parts and even set up reproductions. Things
like Stan's brake brace or repro door panels or dash caps are efforts we
should all be proud of and encourage in others. Nissan sure as hell does not
seem too terribly bothered. Working with Ross at Sports Imports we have set up
a vendor to make complete wire harnesses for 1964 SPL-310's. They are as
perfect as can be. Now everyone can get them. Same goes for the fender patch
panels Ross has made available. I guess I think it would be cool if when we
find we have to reproduce something, we make extra's or keep the tooling
available for others to keep the breed alive. Maybe we need a web page of
these reproduced NLA parts and where to get them.
Well I've got some more lurking to do. Like Fergus, I too went to Catholic
schools, and don't want to get carried any further away.....
It's been fun,
Tim
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