The Datsun Cablight A220 was introduced in March 1964. The third generation Cablight finally offered some style and flair to what had up until now been a somewhat second rate and amateurish effort.
The A220 is a rather attractive and quite cute little truck. It is still very much aimed at the bottom end of the commercial vehicle market, but now has signs of the attention to detail that compare with the rest of the range. For the first time in the Cablight range the doors are a conventional forward hinged design, rather than the suicide doors of the past models. The bodywork is now much better and the panels involve some fairly complex curves.
Inside the cabin it is still fairly austaire, but it now has an instrument cluster that incorporates a speedometer, a temperature gauge and a fuel gauge. The top of the dash is now padded as well. The instrument cluster is actually an old one that was used on the 220 series trucks from the late 1950s.
The badge just above the grille says Cablight. Rather interestingly, there are no Datsun badges on the truck anywhere. The only time the Datsun name appears anywhere on the vehicle is on the horn button in the centre of the steering wheel. The engine carries over from the previous A122 model, which is the D series 1046cc OHV unit.
The A220 underwent an upgrade in 1966 and became the A221, this was fitted with the new 1138cc D11 engine which produced 53hp. The A221 countinued in production until September 1968. This was to be the last model to wear the Cablight name, in October 1968 it was replaced by the new A320 Cabstar.
The A220 was fitted with the 1046cc D engine. It's grille featured 4 columns of 6 horizontal slots.
The A221 was fitted with the new 1138cc D11 engine. It's grille has 3 columns of horizontal slots, with the centre column being much wider than the rest.
In 1967 the A221 got a new grille with 4 columns of 4 horizontal slots, with 3 large slots at the bottom.
The truck version was available with either a "styleside" cargo area as pictured here, or as the A200-H, which had a steel cargo area with fold down sides. Unlike the previous Cablight models, a double cab version of the A220 was not available.
A delivery van version was also introduced at the same time as the truck. The VA220(A) had glass panels in the cargo area with horizontal bars inside to protect the glass area. The A220(B) had steel panels in the cargo area instead of glass.
Length - 3840mm
Width - 1608mm
Height - 1710mm
Wheelbase - 2020mm
Weight - 890kg
Top speed - 90kph
Transmission - Column change 4 speed
Final drive - 6.43:1
1000 Engine
Model - D
OHV 4 Cylinder
Capacity - 1046cc
Bore & Stroke
Power - 40bhp@4800rpm
1150 Engine
Model - D11
OHV 4 Cylinder
Capacity - 1138cc
Bore & Stroke 73x68mm
Power - 53hp
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