Purpose Built Motors’ Datsun 1600 Restomod | Jay Leno's Garage

i've always loved sports cars and yeah cars that handle right grew up racing that sort of thing yeah yeah and when i built this car i i kind of wanted i tried my hardest to uh implement some of those ideas into it such as handling performance that sort of thing yeah we did a good job because it handles very nicely he's got just the right amount of power when you can use all the power all the time yeah you want to be able to use every bit of power and to me it makes them you know they're just saying it's it's more fun to drive a slow car faster right welcome the episode of jay leno's garage you know the first vehicle i ever got was a 1934 ford pickup truck got was 14 years old with my dad we got it running and i drove it the second vehicle i got my first real sports car was a datsun 1600 roadster i believe it was a 66 6566 it was yellow four-speed 1600 i loved that thing uh they were just great cars so this is one of those and i like to think maybe this is what what i might have done with mine if i still had it now 50 something years later so it's kind of cool to see this belongs to a young gentleman mike spagnoli mike come on in i know mike through his dad and he told me about this car so let's get it on the show obviously heavily modified what have you done to it so this car started as a uh just basically a bare shell i bought the car for six hundred dollars and uh started an engine for six hundred dollars it had a block it didn't have a head it had i think one seat in it it was it was pretty you know desolate when i picked it up now how bad was the body because i know i have a honda 600 from the same period and japanese steel at that time was just terrible because it's all about it we had to cut all new metal in here did you have to add a lot of new metal to it there was a couple spots on the floor pane right that um i had to go through and repair but i got really lucky with this car um and it was you know pretty strong and pretty straight so it was a great platform to kind of do a build off of okay obviously the wheelbase is the same right that's all stock it's a flare as it kind of throw me because it makes it look bigger than it than it was at the time i assume you're not running a datsun 1600 motor in this what do you have yeah so what we decided to go with on this car is a um a motor that came out of the silvia in japan 240sx in japan oh sure and uh it's a sr20 det factory turbocharged wow um and we also utilize it usually utilize that transmission from what year what year would that motor be from um they were you know late 80s to 90s motors and they they got real popular in the drift scene um in the states just because they're they're very strong motors they put out a lot of power right nice and light and then the other reason why i decided to choose that is to stay true to the datsun name you know to keep a nissan dotson together what's it two liter it's a two liter motor yeah four cylinder four cylinder okay and it's turbocharged turbocharged yeah from the factory this has a aftermarket turbo on it so what kind of power are you getting with the turbo it makes 300 horsepower to the wheels wow and about 260 ish torque brakes what brakes so once again to stay true to the nissan name i wanted to utilize something from that platform so uh what i have on here is a front brake and rear brake off of a 300 zx twin turbo and then for the master cylinders to power them i ended up going with a tilton overhung pedal box um smooth out the firewall a little bit and give you some nice brake feel and well it looks beautiful can we open the hood and of course the uh let's see the motor of course of course well i guess now i have to say engine because motor means electric okay well very impressive oh he's got a little gold foil here that's a heat shield yeah i mean the turbo creates you know quite a bit of heat and being that close to the paint a little bit of protection there never hurts and gold is always the best reflector of heat isn't it of course yeah yeah so that's so that's got some real gold that's got an expensive piece of foil on it yeah that's the most expensive part of the car for sure really no that was funny boy it fits in there nicely it looks like a big block from here i mean wow that's why i really like using that motor and i've used that motor on a couple builds it's just because it's simple you know that that was kind of the beauty of these old cars is they're just simple motors two carburetors coil and bada-bing and that radiator looks actually small but obviously it must do the job huh yeah it keeps the motor nice and cool um it's a similar size to like a you know like a honda civic something like that do you run non-water-based coolant or just regular coolant i use a water wetter okay yeah okay purpose-built motors is that the name of your shop yeah so that's that's the name of uh my shop and kind of that just you know the name that i kind of tag on all my cars um i i believe that when you build a car you build it for a purpose right you know you don't you don't wear your shoes to the club or your your flip-flops to the club you know everything has a purpose right well maybe you don't but yeah yeah so so do you do other people's work too or just your own car um a little bit of both yeah i do enjoy building kind of my own cars and you know selling them when i'm done with them right um but see that would kill me how can you sell it after you're done well you're never done with it you always want to go back to it yeah okay so how many cars have you built what number is this so this is number one right um so basically the timeline was as i you know graduated from college and uh worked a job for a year and decided i wanted to start my own thing and decided to start out with building a car and taking it over to sema and so this is car number one well it's a beautiful job how long did it take you to do it from start to finish this car start to finish took five months really that's it five months wow okay that's working full time isn't it now do you sort of build it as you go or do you build the whole car in your head first lay it out on paper and then proceed when we started you know basically any project when we start you kind of get a render you work with a render to uh kind of put your ideas on paper because i can't draw a stick figure right right and so if you utilize you know an artist to kind of put your ideas out it helps you build the car in your mind and the nice thing is there's enough room in this engine compartment i mean it really takes up the whole thing doesn't it yeah it takes up the whole thing um i tried to you know simplify things where i can such as that you know originally you'd have the brake master cylinders that come out of the firewall right and that's been all smooth your master cylinders are now under here okay so you reach them from under the dash yeah so that they're it's an overhung pedal box and the master cylinders are right here okay for example like the wastegate i hid underneath the manifold and just to really try to simplify it to kind of give that sense of the original motor just how some simple it was i notice you have a a scoop in the hood there any place to let their air out or does it get hot in this compartment it doesn't get too too hot um it's pretty open you know it kind of flows in and out pretty well i haven't had too many issues as far as you know heat silk or anything like that and suspension wise what have you done um so suspension is uh a custom you know leaf pack and custom coils in the front and it's uh it does pretty well it's a stiff car for sure yeah especially with the minimal clearance that you have for the you know for the wheels and tires did you have to do a lot of chassis bracing so that's the amazing part about the dodson roadster from the factory it's an x-braced boxed frame it's a very stiff rigid frame and it you know it allows for you to put big power without any twist in it so there was some modifications done for sure but you know minimal i'd say now do you have a top for it as well on this one i don't i wanted to keep this one a true roadster right right um it's it basically only goes out when it's nice and sunny and the weather is perfect so you carry a tonneau just to cover the half so i do have one yeah yeah yeah no it's very bad i mean it's just a good sized car you could actually get a small back seat in there at one point yeah so the early ones the 1500s um they did have the you know the rear seat in the back the sideways seat and in japan this it's a glass it's a glass windshield yeah glass windshield is it's a stock windshield stock windshield yeah so so so the body is basically stock except for the uh the flares correct yeah yeah so the the body kits the flares in the front air dam was um designed by a company called pandem rocket bunny okay uh mr miura in japan designed it and the development of that is actually a really cool story and it's a true testament to the automotive industry and how people come together to create something that the car was scanned at the you know sema garage and diamond bar right those files were then sent to mr muir in japan he developed the body kit and shipped it back to me two weeks before sema fit perfect on the car wow we put the wheels together and off it went i mean now see i don't know what the rules are in japan in japan are you allowed to take an engine from one car put another car in it like here in california i know europeans go crazy what we get away with here yeah and i imagine it's the same in japan they must sort of kind of look the way we do things versus the way they do things are they surprised when they see a vehicle like this with this much horsepower because would this be allowed in japan i don't even know i don't think so i can't say for sure on that one but um i have had a couple a couple people mention that that it's it they're surprised that you're able to do stuff like this yeah because i know in japan a lot of times they once the car gets more than five years old you actually pay more to register yeah and insurance as well and they just junk them because there's a guy down the street here that sells five-year-old japanese engines they have maybe sixty thousand fifty thousand that's nothing yeah and they sell them secondhand you know it's for hot rodders and whatnot because i guess they can't they can't do that in japan so yeah it's fun to see the japanese influence with the american ideas you know it's it's really it's really fun because no one i think in japan would conceive of a 1600 and having 300 horsepower and it's got the five speed in it as well okay yeah you got a lot of tire on here does it uh i guess you can break these tires loose with 300 oh yeah yeah yeah second third gear rolling into it it gets a little squirrely on you yeah the car is a handful i'll tell you that now do you use stock steering box so have you modified that as well stock steering box um yeah there's you know a custom sway bar in it some anti-roll bars in the back right let's close up the hood very nice and you got a full-size trunk right yeah full-size trunks yeah i mean it's funny in cars now you don't get sports cars you don't get and it's a pretty big chunk isn't it yeah let me grab the keyboard i need the key to open it there's a uh a fuel cell in there that takes up a little room but it's still good for a suitcase or two yeah that's all right cool yeah you want a small battery as well nicely done got your jack but you have no tire but you got a jack no tire yeah no tire i wanted that was kind of my um idea with the car is to key into some of the you know the aftermarket things that you know my generation is doing but also leave some of the old you know original stuff i want to leave the old jack in it right i wanted to leave the dash the way that it was i think that's one of the best parts of this app is your key i think what anything else we need to see here before we take it for a ride i wanted to show this real quick this is kind of one of my favorite parts about um just cars and building cars and that sort of thing is its story right somewhere on this before me and so when i got the car this was the original glove compartment oh wow look at that and it's uh it's filled full of um plaques of the original owner that did rallies in the car it said braille rally braille did the owner have a family member that was blind or something is that why they so the braille rally is something that i believe still goes on today um but what it is is you know someone who's not unable to see sits passenger right and it's a rally that uh the coordinates are given in braille and so you have to work with the passenger to you know get to your destination oh that's right and this goes well look it's that says 1969 67 there okay yeah so so this has been an enthusiasm car since the beginning yeah and i thought that was just such a cool i think that's great i think it's very cool that's very cool well let's take her for a spin and see what she does still got plenty of room it's a tight squeeze but that pulls right nicely okay it's got all kinds of power yeah it sits you get into boost and it really puts you back now it feels like a datsun you know why it's called datsun right what is that well when nissan came to america many japanese cars that came over the early 60s literally shook themselves apart on our freeways they they weren't used to sustained high speeds of 70 80 miles an hour because you didn't have those kind of roads in japan back in the day so they changed your name to datsun that if the car did become an embarrassment or was anything less than they thought it would be it wouldn't hurt the nissan name and then when the datsun 243 when it finally showed that they were worthy of the name nissan they then switched it back uh but they just called it towson because they didn't want to be embarrassed if the cars were not you know subaru had that 360 thing that silly little yeah a tiny little car yeah yeah and that was sort of a joke and it didn't help them at all there was a man named mr k every year yeah mr k of course mr k has been in my garage really yeah mr k was i think a hundred or a little over 100 when he came he came in a wheelchair really yeah and he very exuberant you know he was one of the few japanese who understood the american market like you know when this came out it had names like fair lady and lilac and mr case no americans like named z x you know that kind of stuff so you said z yes okay so they they made a 240z and it was very successful but that's all because of him he understood the american market you know i have some some ads from my account my uh cosmo the japanese rotary car and the ads are like it's a bird it's a plane it's the super car you know just weird with japanese guys and beetle boots and girls you know just they didn't really know the western market you know so they just took out ads they thought might appeal but mr k really understood the american market and he was probably the most americanized japanese person in japan because he loved the music and you know and the hot dogs in america and all that kind of silly stuff you know so i heard when um the cars first came from japan the early cars that had fair lady or yeah fair lady on them right yeah they pulled them off because they thought it was too feminine was it mr k that that mr k was responsible i believe in the name okay 240z you know numbers that show the engine significance 2.4 liter yeah and then a z for you know performance or sporty or anything like that you know like jaguar used to have ss and then world war ii started and the initials ss came to signify the elite nazi guards so they quickly changed it datsun [Music] [Music] if you look at my garage right now everything i have is a four-cylinder turbocharged yeah and it's just uh i just have a rear-view mirror no i didn't have it how do you know what's behind you you shine up the crawls well it feels like a v6 or a small v8 yeah it uh and the turbo package that i you know went with really does not give too much lag when you're ready for the power it comes you know i sort of enjoy some lag just because uh you know i've got a corvair 66. that was the first turbocharged car well not in the jet fire but anyway the corvair and it had no pop-off valve or anything you just sort of but when you got up about 4 500 oh it started it was like funny it started to pull a little bit really kicks in yeah it goes yeah i love the turbo john because it's like free horsepower yeah you know you got that wastegate it's standard exhaust why not use them when they're coming out the engine you know it's it's so clever now for your roadster that you had did did you leave it completely stock did you do wheels or anything no no won the wheels i was 16. uh-huh the car was a year old like you know and it was just a little sports car i mean there was there was no aftermarket for that stuff in 66 i mean it might have it a little bit but not much and it was always like right with mail order you'd get it like six eight weeks later you know [Music] yeah i mean it's so funny it's just like you're just hitting the power button yeah and no cowl shaking very it's firm but it doesn't seem stiff no it's it's warm i mean on on decently paved roads it drives great yeah yeah [Music] i mean it handles wonderful you know the monocots you have to have your elbow like this out the window you know this you can sort of rest it you know it kind of feels right driving it one hand you know out the window exactly it's uh non-power brakes right but if you feel the brakes kick in pretty good you got to put some force into it but it stops fine how long did you have your uh your roadster when you had it i had it for a couple of years and cracked it up you know stupid kid stuff yeah that bought a bjork 401 grand sport with a four-speed okay how much was one of those cars like what did you what were those cars going for back in the day let me see well i bought mine in probably 67. okay it was a 65-66 i paid 800 oh wow really and it was not brand new but pretty new yeah but that's what they only cost 2600 or something you know so wow that was about right and what was kind of the uh how was it accepted in the car community back there was it uh well you know when you grew up in a little town in new england anything with less than four doors might as well be a ferrari gotcha because you know it's a working-class town at the time and you know my for example my friend mark his dad had a two-door 62 chevy super sport with a 283 and a four belt oh oh my god that was oh it was unbelievable car yeah it was like the cooler everybody else and dad had a station wagon or you know the big six cylinder or whatever from chrysler or chevy or so the idea that all mark said had this super sport well here you go that was just unbelievable i mean back in the 60s motorcycles were fastened to cars for the most part until the real muscle war started and it started to like a harley 883 was a fast bike now it's not even police you know in the 60s 0-60 and anything under 10 seconds was considered really fast i mean the chrysler hemi was the fast accelerating american car 0-60 at 6.3 and i thought it was a misprint that can't it can't be that you know now people are i mean they do you got a tesla two seconds or under you know i've always loved sports cars and yeah cars that handle right grew up racing that sort of thing yeah yeah and when i built this car i i kind of wanted i tried my hardest to to uh implement some of those ideas into it such as handling performance that sort of thing yeah we did a good job because it handles very nicely yeah thank you he's got just the right amount of power yeah i'm i feel like the power is good for it i'm i'm a big fan of uh not overpowering cars right yeah well you can use all the power all the time yeah you want to be able to use every bit of power and to me it makes it you know they're just saying it's it's more fun to drive a slow car faster than a rider right right so why did it cost you to build a car like this how much did you have in it can i ask you yeah so um on this car i have a roughly around you know 20 25 000 well that's amazing yeah yeah it's it's really uh you know with the help of the community and and that's really what it's about is getting yourself surrounded by some good people with help and and you can make something happen for you know a reasonable reasonable amount of money yeah so we got your website up there so people want to contact you guys go to the website correct purpose build motors instagram that's kind of uh all right congratulations nice job thank you beautiful build it's fun to see people using i mean it's nice to spend money but it's nice to use your talents your initiative and your you know your your intuitiveness whatever you want to call it it's really great congratulations just a beautiful job yeah thank you and thank you for having me on the show and everything really yeah this is and this is a conversion people can do right yes it's not i mean obviously a lot of a lot of talent and you're you're a pro but there's not a lot here a person could not do uh well you did it yourself so there you go yeah i i my biggest advice to anyone looking to build anything especially the young generation is do it and screw up and learn from your mistakes yeah exactly and i certainly have a whole garage full of them thank you my friend good to see you and say hi to the old man for me yeah we'll do absolutely see you guys next week [Music] ah

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 305,668

Keywords: Datsun, SEMA Garage, Mike Spagnola, Purpose Built Motors, Nissan, Sylvia, turbocharged, roadster, restomod, hotrod, Mr. K, Mr. Miura, gearhead, grease monkey, car porn, motonerd, car build, restoration, fabrication, modification

Id: mCFrh-qK95Q

Length: 25min 1sec (1501 seconds)

Published: Mon May 09 2022