IDRIVEACLASSIC reviews: Nissan Sunny B11 (the £300 car!)

Today's video is on the lesser spotted Nissan Sunny B11 - a £300 car my friends have picked up to restore and enjoy!

Today's video is sponsored by Adrian Flux insurance

When watching this video, remember we’re looking at a car which cost less than £300 and is at the start of it’s resto journey - so please be appreciative of that.

The Sunny name was used on several Nissans and the one we’re looking at today is the Nissan Sunny B11. The sunny name was used from 1966 to 2006 across various models.

However, If you’re watching this from somewhere other than the UK, you might know it as the Datsun Sunny, Nissan Sentra or Nissan Tsuru.

It was available for a short period of time and in fact, the B11 was only made from 1981 to 1985. This makes this example on a C reg a proper latecomer.

Although they did make them in Asia for longer!

The B11 Nissan Sunny was a step up from the previous Sunny and was the first front wheel drive Sunny - which meant that it beat it’s main rival, the Corolla, to front wheel drive status by around 18 months. Nissan weren’t newcomers to front wheel drive of course, because they’d first used front wheel drive with the Cherry in 1970.

It was also the first Sunny to be available with a Diesel engine, which was a 1.7. The car we’re in today though is a petrol car.

I know that in Japan you got various spin offs and special editions including the Laurel Spirit, but over here we got the 1.3 DX, the 1.3 GL, 1.5 DX, 1.5 GL Auto, 1.5 SGL and 1.5 SGL Spirit variants.

We’re in a 1.3 today - it’s a bit gutless - but I’ll explain why I think that is later in the video.

Whilst the Sunny brought a lot of newness to the brand, it also said goodbye to something rather special: the Datsun name. Although the first couple of years of production saw a small Datsun badge to the boot, the Sunny was the first Nissan to abandon the old name officially. I believe the name was dropped completely in 1983 across all the range.

The specs on these 1.3s as we’re testing here today are pretty decent for an everyday car in the mid 80s. It should do 0 to 60 in around 14.4 seconds with a maximum speed of 93 miles per hour, the car from new on the 1.3 would’ve had a 4 or 5 speed manual box.

The engine in this Sunny is the E13 which was used in a fair bit including the Pulsar. The 1.5 Sunny had the E15 engine, which was used in the larger engine Pulsars and the Prairies.

the braking system on these is discs to front, drums to rear. No surprise because most 80s cars are at this point, but it certainly makes the car a far surer bet in modern traffic than some of the earlier mid century classics.

Fuel consumption isn’t the worst either and we’re promised a rather decent 58 miles per gallon on long journey adventures and a fair but not amazing 34 miles per gallon around town.

Which to be honest, on the those around town figures, is average with other cars of this age.

Overall, the Nissan Sunny as you’ll see when we take it out is interesting in its rarity but overall just a bit of a comfy, older car than you can get from A to B with little fanfare.

However, with so few left in the UK today, it makes it an interesting project car and at less than £300, one that anyone with a bit of knowledge, an internet connection and some positivity could take on.

But lets be honest, with resell values being quite low compared to more traditional classics, who would? I caught up with owner Aaron and his partner Ryan to see what motivated them to do it.

#NISSANSUNNY #DATSUNSUNNY #NISSANSENTRA

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