Nearly a decade ago Rob Fuller of Sunnyvale, Calif., picked up an issue of Sport Compact Car, plopped his ass on the couch and began reading. His life was never the same again.
According to Rob, the then editors of SCC called the 510 the "cult car of the '90s" and pronounced the Datsun 510 a great canvas on which to paint one's car dreams. "Now, nine years later," says Rob through a sketchy cell phone connection, "I work at a Z-shop in Northern California and have owned enough Datsuns to fill a small town."
This 1971 510 was his first.
The date was August 13, 1994. Rob, who was living in Georgia at the time, was still bursting with inspiration from the SCC article he read a few days earlier. He wanted a car so badly, he responded to a classified ad for a very rough Datsun 510 located in the small town of Winder, Ga. The asking price was $800.
An old woman answered the phone. The car, which was in pieces, was her son's and she wanted it out of her yard. Apparently, the 510 had been disassembled in preparation for a great buildup that never happened. The car was in need of a willing soul with the means, the time, and most of all, the desire to finish what had been someone else's road-going dream. Rob Fuller was that soul.
For the next year, Rob meticulously pieced together the 510. Along the way, he connected with other Datsun 510 zealots whose knowledge proved invaluable. Rob's enthusiasm for the aged Datsuns even won over his mentors, and afforded him tutelage under forced-induction guru Turbo Tom, and the mastery of the parts details from Bryan Feldman.
With the help of his friends, the car first went from dual SUs atop an L16 to sidedraft Webers, then to a Turbo Tom's suck-through-a-Holley, water-injected turbo setup that got Rob well acquainted with detonation and head gasket replacement. With their collective Datsun passion and knowledge worn on their sleeves, Rob and his cronies would even form the JMA (John Morton's Army), a tightly knit group of rogue Datsun aficionados that descend upon import events in their fossil-era cars as more of an inside joke poking fun at the growing import car club scene.
As his notoriety as a Datsun zealot in the Atlanta area grew, Rob's enthusiasm and knowledge were rewarded with a paid gig wrenching at an Atlanta-area Datsun specialty shop, Z Service Unlimited. There, Rob's knowledge and skill for working on early Z-cars grew by leaps and bounds.
After about a year on the job, a call came in from a Z-car shop on the West Coast. The owner was looking for a seasoned Z-car wrench. Next thing Rob knew, he and his girlfriend relocated to Northern California, where he began work at the shop, and became immersed in a sprawling Datsun scene.
Rob's 510 has been ubiquitous on the Northern California Datsun scene ever since, particularly at the Mt. Shasta meet, where it has won several awards, including Best Overall 510 in 2003. Getting it to this show-conquering status, however, required major surgery.