This week between Christmas and New Year’s is always a weird one. Nobody quite knows what to do with themselves, and time ceases to have any meaning. Which is good for today’s choices, because if you’re going to drive one of them, you had better not be in a hurry.
Yesterday we looked at a couple of SUVs that were cheap because they were only 2WD. A lot of you were impressed with the Ford Explorer’s condition, but concerned about its hit-or-miss reliability record. The scruffier Nissan Pathfinder seemed like a safer bet, and it cruised to an easy win.
Me, I wouldn’t even consider the Explorer with that Pathfinder sitting there. I loved ours. It wasn’t fast, it rode rough, and it got appallingly bad gas mileage, but it felt invincible. This one, with far fewer miles and the newer, nicer interior, looks like a great occasional-use truck to me. It’s a good thing it’s on the other side of the country, actually.
Cars today are really, really quick. Like, stupidly quick. Does a minivan or mid-sized crossover really need to reach 60 MPH in six or seven seconds? No, but a lot of them can. Nobody actually pushes them that hard – as much as you sometimes wish they would, when they’re merging onto the freeway in front of you – but the capability is there.
It wasn’t always that way. Cars from forty years ago were downright leisurely, with 0-60 times in the teens, and nobody really minded that much. The two cars we’re about to look at would be derided as “dangerously slow” by some today, but just on the pokey side of average when they were new. And I’m sure they can keep up with modern traffic just fine, with a little planning ahead. Let’s check them out.
1982 Datsun Maxima Diesel Wagon – $6,500
Engine/drivetrain: 2.8-liter OHC diesel inline 6, three-speed automatic, RWD
Location: Hollywood, MD
Odometer reading: 290,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
Diesel engines, outside of full-size pickup trucks, never really caught on in America – but that didn’t stop just about every manufacturer from trying them in the 1980s. Some were fairly good successes, like Volkswagen, and others were abject failures, like Oldsmobile. But the vast majority of them were nothing but low-volume curiosities, sold for a few years and then dropped from the option list. These days, when one comes up for sale, it often inspires thoughts like “Huh, I didn’t know they sold a diesel version of that.” And such is probably the case with this car: the original rear-wheel-drive Datsun Maxima.
Some manufacturers, like Ford, bought their diesel engines from someone else, but Nissan kept this one in-house. It’s a version of the same L-series inline six found in countless Z cars. With diesel power, it makes 90 horsepower, which won’t knock anyone’s socks off, but it shouldn’t be as shockingly slow as a Mercedes 240D or a VW Rabbit diesel. It’s mated to a three-speed automatic; the Maxima gained an overdrive gear in the year following this. Despite this, the seller says it manages 38 miles to the gallon. It has a ton of miles on it, but that’s not uncommon for old diesels like this. Those who love them love them, and are loath to let them go.
It looks pretty good inside for the mileage, though I imagine those seats have covers on them because they have seen better days. It looks like it’s absolutely stock inside, right down to the stereo. You kept your cassettes, right? This car is also of the correct age to have been available with Nissan’s talking message center. I wonder if this one has it, and if it still works?
It looks good outside, but there is a little bit of rust starting to show in the extremities. But compared to cars this age in, say, the Great Lakes area, or upstate New York, it’s pretty much pristine. The wire wheel covers are a nice period touch, and they show how far Nissan was willing to go to cater to American tastes with this car.
1986 Chevrolet Celebrity Wagon – $7,000
Engine/drivetrain: 2.5-liter OHV inline 4, three-speed automatic, FWD
Location: El Cajon, CA
Odometer reading: 102,000 miles
Operational status: “Just hop in and drive.”
If you were around in 1986, you probably remember that every road, every suburban neighborhood, and every mall parking lot was absolutely lousy with Chevy Celebrities. Chevy’s mid-sized A-body was the best-selling car in the US in that year; this is one of more than 400,000 examples sold. Or maybe you don’t remember them at all. Ubiquity and bland styling rendered them almost invisible. But I bet you rode in one. I know I did. In fact, one of my friend’s moms had a Celebrity wagon exactly like this one.
Powering this box of nostalgia is our old friend the Iron Duke – sorry, Tech IV – four-cylinder, a cast-iron, overhead valve dinosaur from a time when 92 horsepower was enough for a family to get around. What it lacks in alacrity, it makes up for in toughness; these things are hard to kill. And except for being a bit unrefined and noisy, they actually ran pretty well. The transmission is GM’s three-speed TH125C, nothing special, but it works well enough. The seller says this one runs and drives great, and is ready for its new owner.
It’s a blast from the past inside as well, with a bench seat, a column-mounted shifter, and a wide rectangular speedometer that only goes to 85. That’s all right; chances are the car can’t do more than that anyway. It’s all in very good condition, and the seller says everything works. Oh, and from the looks of it, this one has the rearward-facing “way back” seat, as well.
Outside, it’s just about flawless, or as close to it as a 1980s GM product ever got. A few odd panel gaps were just part of the experience back then. It’s got all four factory wheel covers, and nice whitewall tires for the full Reagan-era effect.
I know already that I’m going to get a lot of complaints about the price of these. But I’ll tell you what – today, as a late Christmas present, your fake internet dollars are on me. You can pretend to have either of these you want, my treat. How’s that for a deal?
The post Which Slowpoke Wagon Is More Your Speed? 1982 Datsun Maxima vs 1986 Chevy Celebrity appeared first on The Autopian.
