Size matters. Now take your mind out of the gutter because I am talking about something entirely different from what you are thinking about. I am talking about the size of your car and the effect size and weight has upon performance. As we all know from Physics 101, a body at rest tends to stay at rest and a body in motion tends to stay in motion. It requires energy to make a car go and stop; the less mass that needs to be moved into action or stopped from rolling the easier it is to perform those tasks.
American Muscle car owners love to crow about making four or five hundred horsepower in their cars, but the size and weight of their land yachts limits the performance potential of the cars. Sure, they can burn rubber and make deep-throated vroom-vroom sounds, but when asked to move all of that chrome, vinyl and shiny paint the inertia of two tons is difficult to overcome. And once that hulk is moving it is difficult to drag it to a stop, let alone making it dodge around a curve. The smaller and lighter car does not need as much raw horsepower to do the same job; a 200hp engine in a 2000 lbs. car does the same job as 400 horsepower in a 4,000lbs. Car.
Early on, the original Hot Rodders knew that a small light car was going to be faster than a heavy car. That is why the Ford Model A was a popular choice for dropping a large modern V8 into in the 1950’s. When European cars became more widely available in the US after World War II, American Drag racers embraced the tiny FIAT Topolino for its slim size and petite features.
Japanese cars currently imported to the US have grown in size to accommodate American tastes in large cars. But 35 years ago, the Japanese sent us some pretty small sedans and coupes. Light and cheap these cars served well and then were discarded and crushed at the end of their servable economic life. Which is a shame because the Datsun 1200’s, the Dodge Colts (imported from Mitsubishi) and the Toyota 1600’s of the early 1970’s would be the ideal basis to build a truly fast car. They were all front-engine, rear wheel drive coupes of small dimensions; dropping any thing from a Mazda rotary engine up to a small block Chevy into them would be a snap.
I got to thinking about old Japanese cars because I saw a fairly rare example on the street the other day. The Datsun 1200 (also known as the Sunny in Japan and most foreign markets) was the bottom of the product line that was sold as a coupe, sedan, and as a pick-up truck. Using an Overhead Valve inline four, it chugged along American highways making about 60 horsepower and then disappeared from the Datsun (later Nissan) product line in the early 1980’s. I am sure that I have not seen a running example of one of these cars in over 15 years. But as I was driving east on the Santa Monica Freeway and fairly clean version passed me by.
The owner appeared to be a young man; maybe this car was a family heirloom that got passed down to him. He had added a set of shiny wheels and fat tires, the ride height had been lowered and the exhaust note suggested that the engine was not as it came from the factory. The throwback styling of the fastback coupe struck just the right note of irony with me and the “sleeper� potential to surprise some stop light racers is an attractive lure.
It would be a kick to find a car like this, add a hot modern motor and strengthen the brakes, suspension and chassis for spirited driving. But the tricky part is to find a suitable car to start with, by now all the cheap light Japanese cars of the early 1970’s have been recycled into rebar.