harrysnapper
25th June 2013, 07:17 PM
I hadn't really thought too much about how a car brand impacts on your life until I started writing this but Datsun/Nissan and Patrols in particular seem to have been in the picture for a very long time.
As a teenager I had a mate whose parents owned some land in East Gippsland which was being turned into a caravan park. They also had a Y60 soft top so it didn't take us long to mark out a short rallycross track and start testing out the limits of the Patrols handling against our very limited driving skills, we never actually hit anything or tipped it over but I can only put that down to luck.
Next came an olive green Y60 soft top that me and my dad bought to use gold prospecting up in the mountains along the Nicholson and Tambo rivers. It did the job for most of our trips but a particularly steep climb over a spur above Dogtown and the subsequent very cold creek crossing laminated the clutch plate onto the flywheel. This is when I learnt to treat clutches with a bit more respect! It was a long drive home (Canberra at the time) but a strong starter motor and the trusty old straight six got us there eventually. That car also taught me another lesson, removing/replacing a 4wd gearbox/transfer case to fix a clutch was not as straight forward as one I had done on my 240Z. Once fixed it was traded in on a much more civilised hard top Y60 which dad used for the rest of his life to get out into the bush and chase that elusive yellow metal.
I then spent a short amount of time on the dark side with a Toyota Forerunner before seeing the error of my ways and trading it in on a 1990 Ford Maverick, some might say not a true Patrol but at the time it was thousands of $'s cheaper than the equivalent Nissan product and Ford really bent over backwards to get me behind the wheel. I used the saving to get it converted to dual fuel and over the next 18 years as our kids grew up it took the family all over the county to places that I would never have been able to access with a normal car. It turned out to be one of the best and most reliable cars I have ever owned and apart from the engine digesting a disintegrating alloy venturi from one of the carby throats (not sure if it was a genuine Nissan designed part or something from the LPG conversion) that briefly made some awful sounds it just kept going, in fact it is still going strong on my sisters cattle property outside Orange.
I am now retired on a property at Chum Creek and it’s time to sell off my current ride and buy what I consider to be one of the best Patrols Nissan have produced, so I went out on Monday and found a good clean Y61 4.8, gas injected, auto (I'm getting too old to be replacing clutches) TI which I should keep me going for a long time to come…………
As a teenager I had a mate whose parents owned some land in East Gippsland which was being turned into a caravan park. They also had a Y60 soft top so it didn't take us long to mark out a short rallycross track and start testing out the limits of the Patrols handling against our very limited driving skills, we never actually hit anything or tipped it over but I can only put that down to luck.
Next came an olive green Y60 soft top that me and my dad bought to use gold prospecting up in the mountains along the Nicholson and Tambo rivers. It did the job for most of our trips but a particularly steep climb over a spur above Dogtown and the subsequent very cold creek crossing laminated the clutch plate onto the flywheel. This is when I learnt to treat clutches with a bit more respect! It was a long drive home (Canberra at the time) but a strong starter motor and the trusty old straight six got us there eventually. That car also taught me another lesson, removing/replacing a 4wd gearbox/transfer case to fix a clutch was not as straight forward as one I had done on my 240Z. Once fixed it was traded in on a much more civilised hard top Y60 which dad used for the rest of his life to get out into the bush and chase that elusive yellow metal.
I then spent a short amount of time on the dark side with a Toyota Forerunner before seeing the error of my ways and trading it in on a 1990 Ford Maverick, some might say not a true Patrol but at the time it was thousands of $'s cheaper than the equivalent Nissan product and Ford really bent over backwards to get me behind the wheel. I used the saving to get it converted to dual fuel and over the next 18 years as our kids grew up it took the family all over the county to places that I would never have been able to access with a normal car. It turned out to be one of the best and most reliable cars I have ever owned and apart from the engine digesting a disintegrating alloy venturi from one of the carby throats (not sure if it was a genuine Nissan designed part or something from the LPG conversion) that briefly made some awful sounds it just kept going, in fact it is still going strong on my sisters cattle property outside Orange.
I am now retired on a property at Chum Creek and it’s time to sell off my current ride and buy what I consider to be one of the best Patrols Nissan have produced, so I went out on Monday and found a good clean Y61 4.8, gas injected, auto (I'm getting too old to be replacing clutches) TI which I should keep me going for a long time to come…………