Saturday, December 3, 2011

Nissan Juke takes to the dirt against the Eyesore Racing Datsun 510


Nissan Juke takes to the dirt against the Eyesore Racing Datsun 510



Eyesore Racing Datsun 510



Forty years, countless miles, a corporate name change and untold heaps of abuse separate Dave Coleman's 1971 Eyesore Racing Datsun 510 from the 2011 Nissan Juke. But that didn't stop the guys from Inside Line from pitting the two distant cousins against each other in a gravel there-and-back race over a little more than a mile. The beater 510 has plenty of rally class wins under its belt and has been prepared to tackle the worst a stage can throw at it. There's a full cage on board as well as plenty of skid plates, and everything else has been gutted in the name of weight savings.

The Juke, meanwhile, is a bonafide street-legal commuter. Where the 510 has race harnesses, the Juke has airbags, but it also has the benefit of all-wheel drive on its side. How did the two fair on the impromptu rally course? We won't ruin the surprise for you, but we will say that the show down was closer than we would have thought.