Garnet Y

Reviewed a 1978 Datsun F10 on Aug 15, 2009

My brand new1978 F10 was not exactly as pictured. It was a two door but had the body style of the one in the foreground... a sedan type. It was bright yellow with a black and red racing stripe down each side. The biggest problem with the car was the tiny gas tank. It got great mileage, but only had an 8 Imp. gallon tank. I ran low all the time on longer trips. It was front wheel drive, one of the first ones on the market (besides the Honda Civic) and I got lots of startled looks when I made the front wheels chirp at stop signs. It had real bad understeer on fast corners too. Almost lost it a few times on high speed corners on the highway.. It was fun to drive, 5 speed gear box with a 1.4 litre engine that loved to rev. As far as long term reliability goes, it did not live long enough for me to say. I only had the poor thing 6 months. The front drive got me in trouble as I could not tell how slippery the roads really were as it had that famous front drive traction. I wrote it off on a cold winter night when I was going too fast on what was almost glare ice. ( I had no idea it was that slippery) I touched the brakes to slow down and went into a spin, hitting a parked car and spinning off it into a full size van coming the other way. Poor little F-10 was a little out-weighed in that match-up.