When Troy Ermish faced a crossroads in his business, he followed the vintage racing path to become the “King of the 510s.”

The impact of the cars, products, and services provided by Troy Ermish Inc. can be summed up with these thoughts from satisfied customer Phil Hartstein: “There is just something so magical about walking up to a car and recognizing you are about to strap yourself into a purpose-built machine. There’s only so many people who are going to look you in the eye when you stare through your helmet, and you wonder if this thing’s going to work and perform as possible. When you see Troy on the other end of that, you certainly get that confidence that the car is built to do one thing: go around race tracks fast. That is truly a unique experience. I’ve never had a car built for me. I’ve never had my name painted on a car. This has been an absolutely over-the-top experience.”

To fully understand this experience, it’s helpful to have some background on the Datsun 510. When Nissan Motor Company set out to design the Datsun 510 in 1967, its aim was to produce an economical and reliable car. It was the influence of Nissan’s US president, Yutaka Katayama, a motorsports enthusiast, that added the element of making the car fun to drive a part of the project. The end result was a car not only well suited for economical daily transportation, but also as a driver’s car.

The driveability caught the attention of racers who soon learned the car was a perfect design for competition, specifically road rally style races. Luminaries such as Paul Newman and Pete Brock propelled the popularity of the car on the race track far above anything Datsun had ever envisioned, especially after Brock’s team won back-to-back Trans-Am championships with the car in 1971 and 1972. Fast forward a little more than 50 years and the unassuming little Datsun 510 is still wildly popular, now in the vintage racing circuit. A big part of the continued popularity can be traced to not only the timeless, reliable design, but also to a man referred to as “the King of 510s” by his customers, Troy Ermish of Troy Ermish Inc. in Tracy, California.

From Accidents to Opportunities

Ermish didn’t start life with the goal of becoming a 510 guru. It happened almost by accident. He had a deep appreciation for racing cars, as he was actively involved in both the NASCAR Southwest and ARCA series. One day he saw a bunch of Datsun 510s at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca and knew right away he wanted to have one.

Some of the qualities of the little car that stood out to him were, in his words, “They were really well designed and really well engineered so that they really didn’t have any weak points. Seems like a 510 was ahead of its time. It was designed in 1967 and sold in 1968 in America with a five-year run ending in 1973. The only design changes made were super slight, mainly in the interior. Same engine, transmission, and differential, independent suspension with semi-trailing arm—it lent itself to be a great performance car.”

Ermish had already been buying and selling cars, so it only seemed natural to add 510s into the mix. From there, he branched out into selling replacement parts to the people who were racing them. Quite unexpectedly, his 510 business started to grow.

“Sometimes funny things happen and accidents spill into opportunity,” Ermish explained. “For a good 10-plus years I was fixing cars for people, mainly street cars, and I continued to sell parts at swap meets to other race car guys or street car guys. That got me noticed and kind of on the map because people knew they could come to me when they needed to buy a transmission or a suspension piece or a body part.”

Ermish built his first 510 race cars for himself and one of his crew guys and began racing the 510 while also still active in the ARCA series. It was his NASCAR experience that provided an important component to the success of his business. The experience of racing his stock car gave him an in-depth understanding of chassis development, geometry, and how to make the cars work and handle better, which translated perfectly to his work on the 510s. And customers noticed.

Loyal customer Daniel Wu stated, “The fact that he races them only adds to that understanding because he’s doing R&D basically all the time. Every time he’s out on the track, if something fails, he thinks of a way that’s better. The suspension and brake packages sold through his shop are something he’s developed over time based on the fact he’s got a lot of hours and seat time in these cars and kind of knows what they need best.”

Fellow customer Hartstein agreed, adding, “I’ve really come to appreciate how much he understands these cars. I think he makes adjustments for specific drivers. He always seems to tailor his advice, guidance, and setup on the car based on what a specific driver needs.”

In the beginning, there was some overlap, with Ermish running both vintage race cars and stock cars, but that changed around 2013 when he decided to focus solely on the Datsun business. From then on, the business really took off.

“It just kind of went crazy after that,” he recalled. “It was odd because it was sort of like the buddy system. One guy would see a car, and I’d finish it, and then his friend would want one. These were guys who could certainly afford any kind of car they wanted. They had many other highly collectible, valuable cars, and they thought that 510s offered the best bang for the buck. The funnest car to drive, the most economical, entry-level, race-level race car they could own, and it required the least amount of maintenance—that’s what drove them to wanting Datsun 510s. A lot of my early customers would have two cars, a 510 they’d campaign at a vintage event and in conjunction, they’d have a historic stock car, a historic Trans-Am car, all these other high-dollar cars, and they’d always migrate back to the 510 because it was so fun to drive.”

Not only does Troy Ermish Inc. build vintage road race cars, but the company also builds street cars, with a current split of about 50/50 race cars to street cars. Occasionally, the shop will also do a special SEMA build. One such build was done for actor and auto enthusiast Wu. Wu’s 510 was entered in the 2017 SEMA Battle of the Builders and placed in the top 10 of the Sport Compact division. Wu proudly stated, “The car is called the Tanto because it’s the little, tiny knife brother of the katana sword. Just because it’s small doesn’t mean it’s not deadly.”

Wu first met Ermish when the Tanto car was built. He had considered other builders, but after carefully weighing all options, it just made sense to go with Troy Ermish Inc. At the time, Ermish wasn’t known for building show cars, but together, Ermish and Wu worked on the project to create the ultimate 510 show car.

“With his expertise,” Wu explained, “I had the vision for it, all the bright-work bronzed, the Porsche interior, a mix and match of everything. I made the aesthetic decisions, and he helped with the motor and build. He is very meticulous and has worked exclusively on these cars for 25–30 years, so he knows them inside and out. It’s a custom car, so it will have issues. There really weren’t any, but he was there right away to take care of anything. He’s a great guy and stands behind his work. A real, true expert on the 510. What we were doing with Troy was trying to do the highest end and build the ultimate 510.”

In addition to building complete vintage and street cars, Troy Ermish Inc. can also take care of smaller jobs, too. “We fill in with guys who come in and just want a suspension package or an engine package,” Ermish said. “We don’t have to do a complete restoration. We’re capable of taking care of a guy’s small needs, someone who just wants a brake package, or suspension and brake package. Maybe it’s someone who just wants a daily driver, doesn’t want a race car and won’t do any track days, and just wants something that runs well and handles well. We’ll manufacture a lot of things to make those upgrades. We do our own sway bar packages, brake packages. We’ll buy calipers and rotors from Wilwood or StopTech, and we’ll make all of our own brackets, mounts, and those sorts of things.”

This touches on another key to the success of any of Troy Ermish Inc.’s builds: the strong, long-time relationship with Rebello Racing, a premier Datsun racing engine builder in Antioch, California, which is within 45 minutes of the Ermish shop. The two racing businesses work hand-in-hand, and Rebello builds all the engine packages for every single build Troy Ermish Inc. does.

“I’m not his only customer,” Ermish said. “He is super busy, but he and I struck up a great relationship. So for the last 15 or so years, he’s been an exclusive engine builder for me and is track proven.”

Loyal Customer Base

Troy Ermish Inc.’s shop is within about 3 1/2 hours of four race tracks, which plays a key role in the success of the business. The shop is designed to be efficient, just like the cars that come from it. It covers 5,000 square feet and includes four lifts. Besides Ermish, there is only one full-time employee in the shop, John Bionaz, and Ermish’s wife, Ashley, who handles all the shipping, receiving, bill paying, ordering of parts, inventory control, social media, transportation and towing of customers’ cars, paint, and most importantly, makes sure the lights stay on and the shop keeps generating positive cash flow. “She’s really involved,” Ermish emphasized.

Ermish lets the quality of his work do the promotion. “I’m a believer in what I build. I don’t have to gimmick it; I don’t have to over-promote it. I let the finished product speak for itself and let the customer satisfaction promote it.”

One of the benefits of this approach comes when a high-profile customer is involved. “They’re treated no differently than the guy down the street who just wants a brake job,” Ermish said. “It’s no different with the exception that a high-profile customer has more social networks.”

Exposure from those social networks allows anyone to search the Internet and find videos of these customers showing and racing their cars, sharing their satisfaction with the Troy Ermish Inc. experience around the world, typically capturing a larger audience than any special promotion ever could. As an example, Ermish built a car for Greg Elliott, who was the prop master for “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” Leno included a segment in his recent show, “Jay Leno’s Garage,” about Elliott’s Datsun 510, which can be found with other videos on Ermish’s website, ermish-racing.com. As Leno was test driving the car, he enthusiastically said, “This car’s going to be the ’57 Chevy of the import world.” This sort of high-profile exposure is something that would be very hard for any ad campaign to match.

Every business faces its own challenges, and Troy Ermish Inc. is no different. In the early years things were simpler, as there was little overhead, and Ermish was governed by the amount of time and money he had available, being the company’s only employee. As the business grew, time management and meeting all the demands of the growing customer base became more important. For this, Ermish has a simple formula: “I don’t want to overextend myself buying more lifts, getting more property, and hiring more employees. I don’t want to be in a position where I have a chance for failure. I would rather take longer to do a job or miss out on one job to make sure I have three customers who are super happy and have the jobs get completed in a timely fashion.”

Ermish also faces a common post-COVID-19 challenge, which is “finding motivated individuals who are doing the same kind of thing I am to stay afloat. People don’t work as hard or as fast, and they’re not driven. If I could find one more full-time employee, I’d probably hire that person. That person is getting harder to find. The skills needed for this job today are diminishing.”

Customer support is always important for sustained longevity of a company, but what Ermish does for his customers could be redefining the term. For street car customers, he offers his three decades of experience and says he’s always there to take care of a customer who has a question or a problem.

On the road race side of the business, Ermish has customers who fly in from different states and countries to race. He houses the cars, maintains them, provides track support, transportation, and then does it all over again, race after race, for as many races as they want to do.

The cars are already shaken down for the race. “I take them to a track day,” Ermish said. “I’ll take them and dyno them so they’re 100% prepared for these guys to come to the race track. We have an extensive spares package, so if something goes sideways, we have engines, transmissions, differentials. We had one customer last year who made a mistake, ruining his engine. We did an engine removal and replacement in three hours, and he didn’t have to miss a track session. On average, we’d have three to four events with these guys, and we’d have to take four to six cars to the track. We’d have a couple of my crew guys from my stock car team come out and help because I can’t take care of six cars and my own car at the same time, provide a crew for them, and take care of all the little problems. All they’d have to worry about is putting a helmet on and having fun.”

Perhaps the depth of Troy Ermish Inc.’s commitment to customers and the sport can by typified in the experience of Hartstein. He got involved in racing as a hobby when he was about 40 years old. He started out in an Alfa GTV, spending about a year refurbishing it until it was safe to drive at speed. Upon getting it on the track, he soon discovered, while fun, the car was simply not competitive.

When looking for an alternative, Hartstein looked at all the cars in the B-Sedan class and settled on the Datsun 510. This was his introduction to the 510 world and to Troy Ermish.

Hartstein called Ermish and said, “I was about to buy a car. Would you mind taking receipt and delivery of this vehicle and just giving it a shakedown for me? Let me know if it’s safe.”

Indeed, Ermish brought the car up to racing standards, and Hartstein would go on to campaign that car for the next several years until the day came when Ermish told him the car had too many problems that couldn’t be fixed easily. Hartstein decided it was time to build a car.

“We started talking,” said Hartstein. “He explained to me what the process of developing a new car was. It took about a year [to build the car] while I drove my original car until we showed up at Thunder Hill for the first race this year. Troy arrived a day early. He wanted to make sure it was ready and safe, so he took it out for a cruise. To see my car perform before I ever actually got into it to drive it was really eye-opening to me. Really a fantastic experience. It was my first experience with true professionalism and performance dynamics of the mechanical limits of how these cars work.”

Troy Ermish Inc. is strictly a high-performance business, so there are no warranties involved in the products, but Ermish still backs what he builds. “I’ll be fair. We do our best to make the customer feel they didn’t just waste a big pile of money. We work in good faith and make concessions. I like to say I’m pretty thorough, and we don’t have mechanical issues. I like to think I’m a fair individual, and if we can make it right, we will.”

The success of Troy Ermish Inc. boils down to his commitment to the quality of his work, the Datsun 510, his customers, and to the sport. This commitment is captured in this observation by Hartstein: “One of the sweetest things is he married his wife Ashley on 5-10, at 5:10 pm. Their wedding colors were the colors of his race car. It gives you a sense of how dedicated and committed Troy is to the 510.”