1967 Datsun Roadster

MGB was a most unusual family car for Bensons

On a recent Saturday, Blaine Benson sifted through a folder of documents, the remains of a road trip taken 40 years ago. Among the ephemera were Pan Am airline tickets, ferry receipts, invoices for car repairs and a mileage log, handwritten on white notepad pages.

"It's the family story," Benson, a computer systems engineer, said of the archive. It is the chronicle of a continent-crossing journey, stretching nearly equator to pole, that his parents once made in a 1962 MGB roadster.

"My dad had a thing for sports cars ," Benson, 41, said. "He had a Triumph TR3. He was a bit of a car freak."

Benson's father, Skip, bought the MGB in 1967 for about $1,000 in Puerto Rico, where he and his wife, Barbara, were training Peace Corps volunteers. When their work contract expired later that year, the family - Joel, Blaine's older brother, was born during that time - headed to Nome, Alaska, where Skip was going to work for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The MGB sailed by ferry to Miami, where Skip and Barbara rejoined the car and drove up the East Coast.

Built in Britain from 1962 to 1980, the MGB was an everyman's sports car, not as costly or as rare as an Austin-Healey. It was lightweight and sprightly.

Of the 1.8-liter engine, Benson said, "It's loud."

Later MGB models came with a backseat, but the Bensons' car was a two-seater. To accommodate Joel, Skip made a little plywood box that just fit on the parcel shelf behind the seats, and Barbara padded it.

Most of the ride, however, Joel sat on his mother's lap, pulling her hair so insistently that she eventually cut it.

The Bensons drove through Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. They visited family in Iowa. They passed through Texas and went west through Roswell, N.M., and Phoenix, Ariz., before reaching California. They drove north, through San Francisco and Oregon, until they reached Seattle.

"I don't think the Interstates were fully there yet at that time," Benson said (he's right). Checking his mother's gas log - they were being reimbursed for travel expenses - he re-created the route as best he could.

"I was looking at the roads, and seeing where they went and some of the towns where they stopped for gas," he said. "And they're podunk towns."

From Seattle, the car went by ferry to Alaska. Skip and Barbara picked it up in Skagway and drove on to Anchorage. That's where the road ended; the MGB eventually flew to Nome in a cargo plane.

1967 Datsun Roadster $500: $2011 Classifieds forum: Grassroots ...

You do realize that lower ball joints are $250 each and uppers are no longer available right? Brake calipers are $350. My guess is that car will need the entire brake system (Calipers, rotors, master cylinder, etc) to even have a chance of stopping. That will set you back $1600...

That car is at least $2000 away from running and stopping at all, much less running and stopping well....

This is before you get into the motor swapping...

Road & track

Datsun Fairlady Roadster to 280ZX, The Z-Car Story -Hardbound

Datsun 240Z and 260Z Gold Portfolio, 1970-1978

Datsun Roadsters 1960-71 Performance Portfolio

Cars & parts