32 years ago this month

In July of 1976, as the Bicentennial was being celebrated around the country, I was a kid in junior high in Ewa Beach, Hawaii. I don't think I was reading car magazines at that point, and I definitely don't remember reading in Car and Driver or Road & Track about the new front-wheel drive Datsun, the F10. In fact, the first time I realized there was an F10 was when I saw the late "Queen Henry Charles" in the used car lot at Joe Gibson Ford in Greenville, Texas, in 1980.

Sitting in the Texas sun evidently caused a major outgassing of volatile organic compounds from the interior plastics, so I have an indelible memory of opening the door and sitting down in that red 1977 hatchback for the first time. The smell of the warm plastic is as clear in my mind as if it happened yesterday. Compared to the comparatively more primitive (and considerably oldleer and more worn) 1972 Toyota Corolla S5 I'd had previously, the F10 seemed nearly new and from a different era.

It's illuminating to read these contemporary reviews that point out that the F10 has "280Z handling for a B-210 price", or note that it's braking performance was on par with the all-new Porsche 924 tested in the same issues. Everybody was slow back then, and the F10 was, relatively speaking, not a terrible performer for the day.

And of course I had to laugh at the complaints about the shifter; Queen Henry Charles was definitely a "bag of gears" that you had to shift by precise lever placement and prayers to the appropriate deities. Tanya tried driving it once and gave up after a couple of miles in disgust. I thought I just had an extra-sloppy linkage, but evidently they all were like that to at least some extent. (Arnelle doesn't seem as bad as I remember Henry being, though.)