Capt Worley PE
Run silent, run deep
In the five decades they've been on our shores, Japanese car makers have taken a lot of guff for building boring cars. Not from us, though. We know that sporty cars have been in the Japanese makeup nearly as long as they've been in America; one need only see the early Datsun Fairlady roadsters (and soon the 1500 and 1600 Sports models) to see that. Performance models have waxed and waned in the years since, but the older Japanese car's reputation as a mere commodity, a soulless transportation device, still faces an uphill battle. Increasingly, this is hard to fathom: To our minds, a Datsun 510 has as much soul in it as an Alfa. Both are old, eccentric in their own ways, and utterly charming. Country of origin plays no part.
There are plenty of points of interest dotted around the old-car landscape. The trick is finding them: Many have been driven beyond salvation, and their low entry price means that big-dollar restorations won't make any financial sense. The good news is, beyond trim and cosmetic items, Japanese cars tend to be reliable enough that you won't need to spend a ton of cash to fix them up after purchase.
Obviously, one-owner and ultra-low-mileage examples are going to cost a bunch more; we're assuming everything here is around 100,000 miles--just breaking in, for most Japanese engines. Also, if you live in the rust belt, shop carefully: The Japanese didn't get a good handle on rust prevention until the mid-'80s.
We've chosen 10 Japanese performance faves from across the latter half of the 20th century--all of which can be had for a couple of mortgage payments.
List here: http://www.hemmings.com/hsx/stories/2009/06/01/hmn_feature7.html
