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himilefrontier · May 31st, 2003, 01:26 AM

Datsun started the Japanese Sport Compact market!!!! The original 1968-1973 510 was the first!!!It was known as "The poor man's BMW".The other car that helped start it was also a Datsun: the 1970 240Z(both were the brainchild of Yutaka Katayama) .What did Honda have? the 600 coupe-not exactly high performance! And Toyota? the Corona.Mitsubishi? The Dodge Colt. None of those cars had ANY kind of sporting features.Mazda had the RX-2,but that was after the Datsun.The real first FWD Sport compact was neither Japanese nor German.It was British.The Austin Mini Cooper S of 1963(?).The Cooper was named after a British race car driver named John Cooper who saw the potential in the 1200lb subcompact and built his tuner version.It was sold in the US until 1969 when it wouldn't pass saftey regs.Interestingly, it was originally designed on a napkin bySir Alex Issogonis who was knighted for his design.It was sold in the UK until 2000,when BMW took over and started building the new MINI(why it weighs 2600lbs, I dunno!)

May 31st, 2003, 01:26 AM	#12 (permalink)
himilefrontier 265k miles and counting.. Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Tampa Bay Area Posts: 2,656	Datsun started the Japanese Sport Compact market!!!! The original 1968-1973 510 was the first!!!It was known as "The poor man's BMW".The other car that helped start it was also a Datsun: the 1970 240Z(both were the brainchild of Yutaka Katayama) .What did Honda have? the 600 coupe-not exactly high performance! And Toyota? the Corona.Mitsubishi? The Dodge Colt. None of those cars had ANY kind of sporting features.Mazda had the RX-2,but that was after the Datsun.The real first FWD Sport compact was neither Japanese nor German.It was British.The Austin Mini Cooper S of 1963(?).The Cooper was named after a British race car driver named John Cooper who saw the potential in the 1200lb subcompact and built his tuner version.It was sold in the US until 1969 when it wouldn't pass saftey regs.Interestingly, it was originally designed on a napkin bySir Alex Issogonis who was knighted for his design.It was sold in the UK until 2000,when BMW took over and started building the new MINI(why it weighs 2600lbs, I dunno!) __________________ 1998 Nissan Frontier XE/2wd/5spd 1 owner, 264k miles 1985 Olds Cutlass, 350 Chevy, owned for 14 years WANTED: 1968-1973 Datsun 510 or 1991-1994 Sentra SE-R http://www.myspace.com/junkyardengineer Last edited by himilefrontier : May 31st, 2003 at 01:31 AM.