‘Priceless’ classic Datsun goes global as miniaturised model
RICHARD Brown laughed when he got a Facebook message from a company saying it wanted to reproduce his Datsun 1600.
But what he thought was a scam turned out to be real – and the car, restored by his late father David, has been replicated into a much smaller one.
The message was from the president of Greenlight Collectibles in the United States.
‘‘The car itself was in the New Zealand Performance magazine, and he said he’d seen it and told me it would work in well with their model range.’’ Brown said he thought it was ‘‘just a joke’’ and ‘‘a load of bulls...t’’.
Nonetheless, he played along and messaged back. He was then sent an agreement by the company. ‘‘It was basically giving them permission to use the image of the car for a model.’’
‘‘I signed the bit of paper . . . and they sent a proof through of the model, and a mock up of how it was going to be.’’
Brown received about 40 free models as part of the agreement and displays them at his Timaru Autoparts Partsworld business.
The car was built in the 1970s and brought to New Zealand and restored in 2005 by his father, David, who died from a heart condition while racing his Datsun Cherry nearly nine years ago
Richard still races the beloved Datsun in classic meetings, and will be racing it at the ENZED Classic at Timaru’s Levels Raceway on February 9 and 10.
The car was insured for $60,000 but was ‘‘priceless’’ because ‘‘the old man built it’’. MYTCHALL BRANSGROVE/STUFF