Return to Shovelnose's garage

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Published on 03 November 2019

Whilst the Stanza is not a car at the top of my wish list, I found this video interesting. I'd forgotten how successful the car was in rallying back in the day. I'm glad a rare 2 door was featured as it is a car I've never ever seen in the metal. I find it fascinating that despite the 2 doors coming to the Melbourne plant in CKD kit form in error, they were allocated to Victorian Datsun dealers who had no trouble selling them, despite no promotion! I still remember the very brief article in Wheels or Modern Motor Magazine back in the day that mentioned this. That flies in the face of the usual excuse (usually by the local heads of Japanese brands) to not import the more desirable 2 door versions of models here. Does anyone know if the 2 door Stanzas assembled here had a sports dash with a tachometer, similar to the SSS? I'd always wanted a 2 door hardtop version of the early 1980s Bluebird (like the photo below), amongst many many other 2 door variants we missed out on. A 2 door Stanza with an independent rear (did this platform ever get IRS in Japan?) and a twin came engine like the rally cars would have been interesting....