Buy This Triple-Carb Datsun 1200 Before We Do

It’s not every day a Datsun 1200 Coupe comes up for sale in the UK. Seemingly, when they do, they’re not exactly normal – like this SR20-swapped example we featured back in May.

That car is still for sale, largely because we’ve yet to find £20,000 down the back of our sofas. Somehow, though, we’ve found another that’s even more bonkers than that.

This 1973 example of the 1200 Coupe has a story stretching before the metal you see in the pictures. The running gear of the car, with the exception of the engine, lived in another 1200 Coupe converted by a company called Samuri in-period.

At that point, it was running the 2.4-litre twin-carb engine and gearbox from a Datsun 240Z, the rear axle from a Ford Capri and the diff, suspension and brakes from an F2 car. Known as the Samuri Sukati, it was said to take part in super saloon racing throughout the decade before suffering a crash that effectively wrote the shell off.

So, all the mechanical gubbins were scooped out and rehomed into the 1200 shell you see here. Only the engine wasn’t carried over, with the second form of the Sukati receiving a triple-carburetted 2.8-litre L28 straight-six. Oh, and that mad rear wing and huge front dam you see it wearing now.

Apparently, the car was run in hillclimbs in that spec until the late 1990s before it was sold and went into hibernation. In 2008, a father-and-son duo reportedly acquired it and set about making it road legal, a project that took until 2016 – with the car remaining in storage since then.

As it sits today, the Samuri Sukati badging remains, with the interior composed of little more than a Sparco steering wheel and two Cobra bucket seats. Although indicated as having covered 12,945 miles, there’s no documentation to back that up as the true mileage. Not that a single one of those will have been driven gently, anyway.

There is plenty of photo evidence of the build, though, as well as several invoices and supporting Haynes repair manuals, which may or may not come in handy given the extensive mods.

As bidding on Collecting Cars stands while we’re writing this, it’s at £3,900 with four days to go. Plenty of time for us to keep searching the sofa, then.