Upper Middle Petrol Head:

Three strikes and you're in!  Attempt to attend Australia's biggest and best Italian car day # 1 :  2019, my car's not ready.  # 2 :  2020, the world is held ransom by the C-word (the other C-word!), with interstate borders locked down and the whole event abandoned.  # 3 :  2021, travel restrictions lifted, the show's back on and - even though my car's still not quite up to the journey (I chose to fly in) - the opportunity to hang with the UMPH Canberra Bureau is too tempting to resist! The 2021 installment of Auto Italia wasn't able to fully escape the Covid fallout, though.  With the usual Canberra venue doing duty as a drive-through C-19 testing station, organisers moved the whole shebang to a scenic park within the town of Queanbeyan, NSW, which is only a short drive from the ACT.       The sheer numbers of Italian cars on display was almost overwhelming, so the UMPH team made sure that they concentrated their energies on the ca...

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, d...

This magnificent Valiant Charger - captured by the UMPH chief photographer during a recent team-building excercise with the Canberra Bureau staff in the ACT - is exactly the kind of car that the senior writer and editor both particularly like!  It was ostensibly stock-standard, other than a set of cross-drilled four wheel disc brakes with after-market PBR callipers and a five-speed 'box.  Very subtle!  But if the owner went to the bother of upgrading the anchors and adding another cog, it seems pretty likely that there's more to the motor and probably suspension lurking beneath its otherwise unmolested and very, very original exterior!   Coming soon:  Coverage of the Rally of Canberra staging area and several installments of Auto Italia. U M P H (uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.com.au.) iPhone images.