About

About our Club

The Datsun Sports Owners Assn. is a club dedicated to the preservation of these unique and special cars. It is a club solely for the owners of the Datsun Fairlady 1500, 1600 and 2000 Sports cars built between 1962 and 1970, and the original model Nissan Silvia coupes built between 1964 and 1968.

The club has been operating for over thirty years, and in that time it has grown from its humble start, with only a handful of members, into a truly international club with members in every state of Australia plus members from all around the world.

As a member of the DSOA you will gain access to many hard to get and no longer available Datsun Sports parts. The club has many parts in its own stock, if we don't have the part chances are that we will know someone who does. The DSOA is also dedicated to reproducing parts that are no longer available. Club members recieve discounts at many Nissan dealers when ordering parts for their Datsun Sports.

We issue our electronic newsletter 'Sports Torque' bi-monthly. It contains sections with parts for sale, stories about members cars, technical articles, coming events and news, plus much more.

The club has many members with decades of experience owning, restoring and maintaining Datsun Sports, these members have a wealth of knowledge about these cars and are happy to help with technical advice. Through the club we can assist you with getting Historic Vehicle Registration in Queensland for your Datsun sports car.

The DSOA is also an active social group too. We have regular runs and outings including day runs, restaurant and cafe nights, observation runs, regular meetings, plus our Annual General Meeting, Motorsport activities, our Christmas Party and the annual Datsun Sports Nationals event.

If you are thinking of buying a Datsun Sports it is well worth joining the DSOA first as an associate member. You can draw upon decades of experience offer about what to look for when buying a Datsun sports car.

Origin of the Fairlady name

The Fairlady pedigree is intimately connected with the development of the sports car in Japan. In 1961, the then president of Nissan, Katsuji Kawamata, was in the US when he chanced to hear of the Broadway musical "My Fair Lady", which was enjoying a long run. At the time, Nissan was planning to launch an improved version of the Datsun sports car (SPL213) in North America, and the President thought it would be a good idea to name the car "Fairlady" in the hope that it would prove to be similarly popular. The Fairlady's predecessor, the Datsun Sports (S211), had indeed been popular when exhibited two years earlier, in 1959, Los Angeles Imported Car Show. Exports to the US had just started, so the new name given to this improved version helped with the promotion, and as a result there was a surge in sales.

The SPL213 - the first-generation Fairlady, with a 1,189cc engine (60PS) - was launched in 1961. The SP310, often mistaken as the first-generation model, was actually introduced in the following year; it had a 1,488cc engine (71PS) and cost 850,000 yen. The Fairlady Z with a closed body was launched in 1969.

_{Source: https://www.nissan-global.com/EN/HERITAGE/short_story/en_p44-01.html}