I dunno about safe, but the rear pillars were pretty sound and the age of car we are talking about involved heavy and strong shells, so if you rolled it, I would be surprised if the roof collapsed. Not that it was likely to roll, because it had a chassis and that meant the weight was low down.
I can, however, point out that the rear window was, of course, mechanically wound and you couldn't really reach it from the front seat. Therefore, the car was rarely actually pillarless in the sense of being able to swing your arms around to the right, and in practice if you wound down the front glass and did this, you would bang your arm on the glass edge (well, metal finish on the edge but it was still relatively painful. A really, really good idea to put electric window winders in.
Heh, the americans have this stuff
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Course, when I bought mine, it was about 300 quid and a damaged engine block was enough to write it off. Bet they've gone up a bit since then ;)
About the only thing that went wrong on a 80K mile 610 estate, 105K mile 810 estate, 115K mile 910 estate and 124K mile 910 hardtop coupe [1] was they rusted and the coupe was killed by being 'T' boned. I think other than normal wearing parts like bulbs, tyres, brake pads and shoes, oil filters, plugs and points, they used 3 exhausts, a clutch, an OEM battery [2], a head gasket on the coupe, a carb and one brake disc between the whole lot of them. Gave over 25 years use between myself, brother and dad. Can't count the coil I fried by leaving the ignition on engine off for 3 hours.
All the estates had a good well used life in the antiques trade with roof rack and trailer. On top of weekday duties, the 910 estate got to go Vintage racing for 5 seasons with a 3 bike trailer, 5 people,
2cwt of spares and tools about 8-10 weekends a year. The car in front must be overtaken - we was going racing. The only thing that ever got away was some sort of brand new 3 door Ford Sierra with an OTT spoiler that appeared to say R5 on the back of it. It vanished into the distance when I showed him my nose (doing a ton-15), he must have seen the trailer in his mirror. I do hope he didn't do any damage using the motor like that while running in.
[1] L18T T for Twin SU's, big valves, high lift cam (std), pilliarless, frameless glass, with front and rear windows wound down it had a wide open space from windscreen to rear window and what a sexy wrap around back window. Totally useless for racing, couldn't close the boot with a spare engine in it.
[2] taken off 'T' boned coupe when 6 years old, went on to do 5 years more service in a '84 Celica 2.0XT liftback. Two other Nissan OEM batteries also lasted over 10 years. Sold the 910 estate with the 11 year old battery that came on the coupe (dad had it from new - 80K).
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I saw quite possibly one of the most obscure sleepers I reckon I'll see at the JAE a couple of weeks ago: 1979 Datsun Sunny... faded metallic green, with matt black NS front wing and door, together with a few rust patches here and there.
Apart from the custom style wheels (the sort you always saw in the seventies, as in chrome finish with five bean shaped holes), it looked standard... until you looked under the bonnet: Nissan Silvia / Bluebird 1.8 Turbo running gear :-D
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