Random # 394: JDM Datsun 1600 SSS / Violet

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The UMPH team certainly weren't looking for Japanese cars when they attended Auto Italia in the NSW town of Queanbeyan, just outside of the Australian Capital Territory.  However, the example shown here - badged as a Datsun 1600 SSS but known in the Japanese domestic market as a Violet - was too good to pass by.

Stylistically, this car’s an interesting critter; it sort of looks like a prototype to the 180B which, in reality, it probably is.  1600 SSSs also feature independent rear suspension, as did the classic boxy Datsun 1600 that Aussies and the rest of the world know and revere, and the 180B and first series 200B lineups that followed.


Reference to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Violet#:~:text=Introduced%20in%20January%201971%20the,simply%20as%20the%20Datsun%20710.) reveals that the Violet - a name that was never going to sell in the Australian market - also goes by the moniker of Datsun 710, as well as the 140J, 160J, 160U and U180U, depending on its specifications.  It also morphed into the Datsun Stanza, a model that's much better known Down Under and that'll be featuring in two UMPH posts due for publication soon.  

Anyone that's interested in the Violet could do far worse that to check out the two links below from Wasabi Cars:

https://www.google.com/search?q=datsun+1600+sss&tbm=isch&hl=en&safe=strict&chips=q:datsun+1600+sss,g_1:jdm&rlz=1C1GCEA_enAU911AU911&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiLrICk5P7vAhX2ErcAHf_4Bm8Q4lYoBHoECAEQIQ&biw=1263&bih=578#imgrc=2py-1Y20JQ3N8M ; &

https://www.google.com/search?q=datsun+1600+sss&tbm=isch&hl=en&safe=strict&chips=q:datsun+1600+sss,g_1:jdm&rlz=1C1GCEA_enAU911AU911&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiLrICk5P7vAhX2ErcAHf_4Bm8Q4lYoBHoECAEQIQ&biw=1263&bih=578#imgrc=92arJE7h0_3AXM .



U M P H

(uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.com.au.)

Photos by the CACTUS.

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