The Datsun 210ZX Was A Great Way To Demonstrate That You Can Pay Money To Make Something Worse

I want you to imagine something. A sandwich. Let’s say it’s a nice corned beef Reuben, on rye with just the right ratios of corned beef, sauerkraut, and Russian dressing. It’s not a fancy thing, but it does its job as a sandwich just right. Now, what if I told you that for a mere $14 over the price of the off-the-menu Reuben, you can get a paperback-sized slab of drywall smeared with industrial lye soap inserted into your Reuben? Would you be interested in that? Would it make your sandwich better, or just bulkier and, arguably, completely ruined? Your answer to this question, I think, will reveal what you might think about the 1980s-era F.E.D. (Fiberglass Engineering and Design) Datsun 210ZX kit for the Datsun B210.

I actually wrote about this amazingly misguided body kit for the Old Site way back in 2017, but I think it’s worth revisiting here, because it fits the concept of Glorious Garbage so wonderfully. Except, perhaps, it may be a little light on the “glory” part. Still, it’s fascinating, and worth talking about.

Much like sliding a chunk of poison-smeared drywall into a perfectly good Reuben, the 210ZX body kit from FED had the remarkable ability to take something fundamentally quite good and, via the careful application of money, time, and effort, transform it into something that is, let’s be honest here, dazzlingly awful.

Before we dig into the details of this terrifying kit, let’s consider the donor car for a moment, the humble and charming Datsun B210.

The 210ZX kit (the ZX clearly was lifted from the Datsun 240ZX, in the interests, I assume, of adding more confusion to the world) was designed to bolt or rivet or adhere, perhaps via caulk or something, to the outside of a B210 fastback.

The Datsun B210, especially in fastback form, I think was already quite a slick-looking little car! It had good proportions, appealing lines, and look at those honeycomb wheel covers! This wasn’t exactly a boring, soulless econobox screaming for any bit of personality it could grab onto. This was a reliable, efficient little car that had its own considerable charm.

Clearly, though, that was not enough, not nearly enough for the designers over at Fiberglass Engineering and Design, who felt that you, as a Datsun B210 owner, had an opportunity to turn your B210 into a champion. They explain it all in their quite verbose ad:

I think we need to scrutinize the copy in this ad just a bit, because it’s pretty fascinating. I’m going to emphasize some key phrases in here:

The most uncommon Datsun this side of the 280ZX. The 210ZX takes you beyond economy into a world of show-stopping elegance. ECONOMY PLUS. Energy shortages demand more efficiency. Cleaner air demands more technology. You demand more value. Comfort. Safety. Economy, Performance and dependability. That’s why the fuel saving economy of the B210 has made it one of the best compact values in recent years. Now you can add a previously unavailable beauty to your car without sacrificing the qualities you bought your Datsun for. The Datsun 210ZX conversion kit provides an instant restyling of your car’s looks. It breathes new life into your car’s appearance. The ZX kit replaces over 50% of your Datsun’s body area with rust-resistant fiberglass. This assures you that the beauty of your 210ZX will be with you for years to come. The ZX conversion kit may even have the effect of providing better fuel economy since air dams, rear spoilers, fender flares, and similar cosmetic accessories were first developed to improve the aerodynamic performance of sports racing cars. TURN YOUR DATSUN INTO A CHAMPION. The 210ZX is pure thoroughbred, with award winning looks. In fact a 210ZX took 1st place in both the 16th annual LA. World of Wheels and the 25th annual San Diego International Competition. The ZX kit can turn your docile little street car into a sizzling super street charger.

There’s so much unhinged thinking going on here, starting with the phrase “a world of show-stopping elegance.” Just take a moment to look at what a competently completed 210ZX actually looks like:

I’m sure there are shows that would indeed stop at the sight of this thing, but I don’t think it would be because of all the elegance. The 210ZX kit looks a bit like the Datsun is wearing the skin of a slightly larger car, perhaps a skin that it won in combat, or perhaps to honor the other car, sort of like an automotive interpretation of the ancient Aztec skin-wearing tradition where a person would impersonate the diety Xipe Totec, The Flayed One.

I don’t think any other angles of the car actually do anything to remove this association; you can look at more views of this car in this Facebook post:

It’s a lot of things, but I don’t know if “elegant” is any of them. It’s a fiberglass kit, and the ad copy makes special note that “over 50% of your Datsun’s body area with rust-resistant fiberglass” and suggesting that somehow that will help preserve your Datsun’s body longer, safe from the cruel decay of rust, though if you look at this thing carefully:

… I feel like what we’re seeing is just more places for moisture to get trapped between fiberglass and sheet metal, creating many fantastic crucibles for rust all over the car, hidden in innumerable and inaccessible nooks and crannies.

My favorite phrase in the ad copy has to be this one, though (emphasis mine):

“The ZX conversion kit may even have the effect of providing better fuel economy since air dams, rear spoilers, fender flares, and similar cosmetic accessories were first developed to improve the aerodynamic performance of sports racing cars.”

It’s that “may” that gets me, because it reveals that precisely zero FED employees were tasked with actually finding out if any of this fiberglass crap actually provides better fuel economy, which they guess it could, since stuff that sort of looks like this was developed to improve the aero of race cars! So, you know, it might be helping, right? It looks sort of like it could help, after all?

Just, you know, ignore the fact that all this crap is heavy and sloppy and never actually wind-tunnel tested or anything like that. You’re missing the point: it might be helping!

This is the same logic that backs up phrases like “TURN YOUR DATSUN INTO A CHAMPION” and how the 210ZX kit can “turn your docile little street car into a sizzling super street charger,” despite the fact that there are zero mechanical performance upgrades provided with the kit, meaning that your B210’s little 1.3 liter inline-four making about 75 horsepower now has to drag around a few hundred extra pounds of fiberglass, which is always a great way to turn into a champion.

I mean, look at that. That’s a lot of fiberglass. I like how this promotional photo poses the car in front of a log cabin, the ultimate visual metaphor for high-tech racing sleekness. I mean, what looks faster than a log cabin? They leave thatched-roof mud huts in the dust.

The 210ZX really embodies so much of the Glorious Garbage ideals; it’s a modification of a car that pretty clearly makes the car worse, possibly even significantly worse, and yet, somehow, despite every rational thought telling me how miserable this thing is, somehow I can’t entirely dismiss it. There is a sort of deranged glory to this thing, a stunning tribute to the concept of writing checks your butt can’t cash, in automotive form.

If I saw one in person, it would catch my eye. I’d be drawn in despite myself, repelled yet drawn, rolling my eyes that I somehow simultaneously couldn’t keep from staring. I can’t think of anything that embodies the ethos of Glorious Garbage better than that.

Top graphic images: FED; Facebook