By: Denis Droppa
Bothaville - Hidden in a quiet corner of the Free State, in an unassuming brick building, is an enthusiast’s car collection decicated to his favourite brand.
There are no Lamborghinis or Porsches to be seen among Freek de Kock’s full-sized model-car collection, but you will spot a few GT-Rs, 280 ZXs, 240Zs, and Bluebirds.
Because Freek is dilly about Datsuns. So dilly in fact that he’s built up a collection of 118 Datsuns and Nissans, old and new, which he houses on a side street in Bothaville, the quiet town which bursts into life every May when it hosts the annual Nampo Harvest Day agricultural exhibition.
Great enthusiasm went into creating this heritage garage dedicated to a Japanese marque that was born in 1931, phased out its name in favour of Nissan by 1986, and then brought back Datsun as a budget sub-brand in 2013.
Freek fell in love with Datsuns at an early age and nine years ago, with a successful wood merchant business providing the budget, the unasumming, camera-shy enthusiast started collecting Datsuns and Nissans for his own pleasure. Eventually his toy collection grew so big that he built a large brick warehouse to store it. It doesn’t operate as an official museum but it’s open by appointment to anyone who wants to have a look.
Rare specimens
His homage to the 85-year-old brand includes some pretty rare examples, including the 1970 Nissan President V8 limousine formerly owned by the late Mozambican president Samora Machel. So too the 1971 first-generation Nissan Skyline GT-R coupé, said to be the only one in Africa and worth a few bob. It’s part of a set of six GT-Rs in his collection, right up to the modern-day Godzilla with a gazillion kilowatts.
The collection includes more prosaic Datsuns including the 1200 GX, the Laurel, and the Pulsar with the infamously whining gearbox which sounded like a mosquito on steroids.
Most of the cars on the floor are in good condition, while others are in the process of being restored in an on-site workshop.
Today Datsun tends to be in the headlines for the wrong reasons, with its comeback car, the Go, performing dismally in crash tests. But there’s clearly enthusiasm for the brand. Visiting the heritage garage on the day I was there was a Finnish motoring journalist who’s currently driving around the world in a Go.
If you want to take a lekker trip down Datsun’s memory lane, a part of the collection will be on display at the SA Festival of Motoring at Kyalami at the end of August.
Star Motoring