Make This SR20-Swapped Datsun Sunny Your Unexpected Track Day Hero

If you had £20,000 to spend on a used performance car, your choice would be enormous. Everything from Caterhams to 911s, to a dazzling array of MX-5s and brilliant hot hatches would be easily attainable under your budget.

But lots of people have Caterhams and 911s and MX-5s and hot hatches – what if you wanted a used performance car that quite literally nobody else had? Allow us to introduce you to this 1973 Datsun Sunny we’ve found on one of our daily Auto Trader procrastination sessions.

SR20-swapped Datsun 1200 – side

Now, apart from the GTI and homologation special GTI-R versions of the ’90s, none of the many iterations of Datsun and Nissan Sunny exactly scream ‘performance’. In fact, calling a car ‘Sunny’ is basically guaranteed to make people think it’s the opposite of a performance car. It may as well have been called the Datsun Fluffy Bunny.

This, though, clearly isn’t a normal Sunny (and not just because in the UK, this two-door version was actually just known as the Datsun 1200 Coupe). For starters, the original weedy 1.2-litre engine has been swapped out for the 2.0-litre turbocharged SR20DET four-pot and five-speed manual gearbox from an S15 Silvia.

SR20-swapped Datsun 1200 – engine bay

Said engine has then been kitted out with lots of extra goodies – there are injectors and oil and water pumps from Nismo, a K&N air filter, a PWR intercooler and a new stainless steel exhaust.

Most importantly, it has a massive Garrett GT2860RS turbocharger, a model referred to in tuning circles as the ‘Disco Potato’ after the brown Nissan Sentra the prototype was fitted to. Disco. Potato. It’s currently running around 290bhp, but the seller says it’ll take up to 375bhp before the gearbox goes bang. All this in a car that weighs around 950kg. Sounds fun, if a little lively.

SR20-swapped Datsun 1200 – interior

Elsewhere, we find uprated suspension (origin unspecified) and the brakes from an FD Mazda RX-7. The interior, meanwhile, features some modern bucket seats and a Pioneer stereo and subwoofer tucked away out of sight.

And the price being asked for this slice of ’70s mediocrity made magnificent? £20,000, handily enough. It’s like we planned that opening paragraph, isn’t it?