HS30-H

Ah, OK - you are probably right Mike. Maybe it was on HybridZ....... I'll have a shot at attaching some here. See if this works:

1. The "Flares" ( Overfenders ) were original Nissan 'Sports Option' / Race Option items, manufactured by Kotobuki, homologated for FIA Group 4 & 5 use, and therefore easily found in the FIA papers for the HS30 / HLS30 models ( FIA 3023 ). Sometimes known in Japan as the 'Full Works Type B Aero', they used the part number suffix N3020. You can still buy replicas from several different sources in Japan. 2. See above. It's the 62605-N3020 Air Spoiler FR, designed to work with the 'Grande Nose' and the above Overfender set. Those are brake ducts, not integral indicators. Indicators are in the Grand Nose lower panel. 3. As above. It's the three-piece 98100-N3020 Air Spoiler RR. 4. Wheels are the very rare magnesium Kobe Seiko works 4-spoke wheels, with four outer rim bead stoppers and the Nissan 'hamburger' mark cast into one spoke. Rears were not 13" wide ( another mistake on the Autodiva forum thread that originates from declarations made on race entry forms... ) but 12.5j. You might be able to find a used set in Japan, but bear in mind that they were 'lifed' by KS ( they have a casting date stamped into them, and were only recommended to be used for a short period - a bit like F1 parts ) and that they are VERY expensive. I have a set of four and will use them for static display and 'demo' work only. Despite their large size, they are light as a feather - because they are very thin castings..... Bear in mind that the '76 Le Mans car was just the re-painted and slightly re-fitted '75 Le Mans car, which was originally a works Nissan circuit race car built in early 1973 ( the 'Carnet' foreign-use Japanese number plate taken from an LHD works 260Z rally car seen on the car in the '75 race was just a bit of swervery to give the car a bit of extra paperwork for the ACO ). It was used in a couple of races in Japan that year, and then sent to South Africa for the 1973~74 Springbok Series. After just two races, this series was cancelled due to the effects of the 1973 Oil Crisis. The car was eventually taken to France ( brokered by Hans Schuller ) and you know the rest....... You can build a loose 'replica' ( get in the queue.... ) but the devil is in the details and the details are very difficult to replicate. For example, the engine used was topped by one of the super-rare Nissan 'Safari' FIA heads, which were a completely different casting to any of the normal production-based units. They had a special inlet manifold with internal waterways and an external log, as the waterways in the head casting were moved around to make the ports both huge and straight. This head was designed to be used with the Nissan ECGI ( Electronic Control Gas Injection ) system, which featured a Diesel Kiki electronic 'brain' - licensed from Bosch - controlling a set of triple side draught injection throttle bodies. I'm lucky enough to have one of these heads, but using it with the full ECGI kit on it is somewhere a long way off in the future. If you're interested, I'm pretty sure I've put up photos of the head and manifold in my Gallery at classiczcars.com in the past..... LOTS of other tricky to locate parts on the car. I could talk the back legs off a donkey going on about them. Hope that helps a bit, Cheers, Alan T.

It's slightly misleading, as it makes it look as though all genuine 'HS30-H' model Fairlady 240ZGs had the radiator ducts. That's not the case. The very earliest 'HS30-H' models didn't have the radiator ducts. They were a factory update, added after many air-con equipped cars were found to be marginal on cooling, and some people in Japan even call the rad ducts "Air Con Ducts". Some early cars were retro-fitted with them, and some not. The ducts are not a sure sign to tell OEM from aftermarket parts......

As I've already mentioned, there was more than one set of mounting positions on the Japanese market cars. If you choose to ignore that fact, it's up to you. The mounting positions on that orange car above are visibly odd ( I think it takes a fair difference in measurement to make it that visible ), but what proof do you have that the dimensions I provided were used for that? I certainly didn't create the 'flipped' diagram and measurements that people are using for the LHD cars, and I think some people have clearly misunderstood what is being measured to and from. Some of them are using C10-series Skyline and 510-series Bluebird mirrors ( with the different angled / shorter stalks ), and some of them clearly need to be supervised when using measuring instruments and sharp implements..... With all due respect to yourself, I'm wondering how you mounted your own mirrors without the proper plastic bases? If you didn't have the bases ( the edges of which are what the measurements I provided actually use as datum points ) then how did you measure anything?

I look forward to seeing you take some actual measurements from original Japanese market cars, fitted with the correct type of mirrors. Just don't be surprised if you come up with more than one set of dimensions ( I've already mentioned that there's more than one OEM placement ), and if somebody on the internet doesn't agree with you because he thinks they 'look' wrong.... Good luck!

Eggzackly.

Ben, The frustrating thing is that the original illustration used for the template ( see post #2 on this thread ) was actually from an original Nissan document. It's an ILLUSTRATION, not a technical drawing. Anyone commenting on how that illustration doesn't "look" right is obviously missing the point.... The dimensions added to the illustration were taken from an original Japanese market car which was originally fitted with ( the correct.... ) S30-series Z fender mirrors. It's also worth noting that the measurements were taken to the edges of the plastic mounting gasket and not the centres of the mounting holes. These have been cross-referenced with some other original Japanese market cars, and to be honest they were all slightly different to eachother. Ask anyone to measure theirs, and you'll probably come up with a difference too. It's a bitch to measure to a curving datum point, or one that is covered in paint, so you have to take the dimensions with a pinch of salt anyway.... For the record, I've never seen an original factory document that specifically states any mounting point dimensions for these mirrors.

Not necessarily.... The Office Tomitaku car is actually a north American market 'shell that was converted to RHD. The front wings ( fenders ) they used were the generic later factory type without the pre-stamped holes for the fender mirrors, so they drilled them themselves. The fact is that there are several different sets of dimensions for factory fender mirrors on the S30/S31-series Zs. None of them are strictly 'wrong', and - in terms of function - it doesn't actually make that much difference if you mount them a bit further back or forward, or a bit further in or out, as you simply swivel the moving parts to suit you where and how you sit in the car, and what you want to see. If you're drilling holes in your car, it's up to you where you drill them. You are also free to use 510-series Bluebird and C10-series Skyline fender mirrors in the mistaken belief that they are the same as S30-series Z fender mirrors.....

Two out of those three were factory option items anyway. What they are calling the "BRE" spoiler was simply a case of BRE copying the factory option rear spoiler ( which was standard equipment on the Fairlady Z432-R at launch in October 1969 ) and the headlamp covers were part of the original design of the S30-series Z. Front spoilers were being addressed by the factory in late 1969, and they were introduced as standard equipment on Export RHD and European LHD models in 1970. Managing the amount of air flowing under the car and through the engine bay is half the battle. The factory was attempting to address this - again in 1969 - with the long FRP undertray of the Fairlady Z432-R model. Factory race cars could be seen with partially-blocked radiator ducts from mid 1970, too. I don't think there's all that much new under the sun when it comes to these cars.....

Sorry, but the HybridZ wind tunnel testing was full of holes. In the case of the 'G-nose' tested, it wasn't anything like the proper OEM parts and therefore doesn't say anything about the proper OEM parts. The details inside the radiator duct are quite important, and many of the parts you can't see have an effect. Many so-called 'replica' kits don't actually replicate the details of the original factory parts...... One of the other things that people seem to overlook is that the Fairlady 240ZG production model was simply used to homologate some of the parts that were used in racing, and that the factory always intended the 'Grande Nose' to be used with an air dam / front spoiler when actually raced. There are mounting holes on the OEM parts for this very purpose, and there were several different evolutions of air dams and spoilers used - with the later evolutions getting lower and wider, and matching with the extra wide Overfenders. And what was going on inside the rad ducts of the works circuit race cars is a salutary lesson in effective air management, too. If anyone doubts that such measures were effective then I'd like to hear their reasons. Sorry, but for me the HybridZ wind tunnel testing seems to have revealed nothing that wasn't already being addressed with these cars 40 years ago.

The original ( factory ) belts on such an early car would have been static - non-retracting - three-point lap & sash design, manufactured by 'Takata Kojyo KK' ( yes - same company that still manufactures belts with the 'Takata' brand name, as seen on the Super Aguri F1 cars, and last year's Brawn and Toyota F1 cars ). They were all pretty much the same design across the S30-series Zs made up to the end of 1972 at least, whether domestic or export, although I've seen different labels on some domestic market cars. The original white Takata labels should give a month and year of manufacture, may also state the model of car they were designed for ( early export versions said 'Datsun 240Z Sports', as did the late Nov. '71-on domestics when fitted with L24 engines ) and also the local compliance standards. Retracting belts and the north American type with the 'pockets' the bodyshell to house them, were a few years later. Thing is, in the case of HS30-00016, if it does have Nissan / Takata OEM type belts dated 1969 ( I'm interested to know what month? ) then I think they will be fairly unlikely to have been a retro-fit. The S30-specific belts with 1969 manufacturing date are pretty rare in the scheme of things - even for LHD - and I'd be very surprised if they were fitted to the car later in its life. My hunch would be that they were likely to have been with the car from the beginning - even if they were swapped out for local compliance reasons and then re-fitted later. Of course, 1969-dated belts don't date the car ( as Mr C. has pointed out ) and could feasibly have been fitted to a car that came off the line even as late as February or March 1970, although all the seatbelt dates I've ever seen seem to fit pretty closely to the likely month of manufacturing when cross-referenced with other dating stamps on the cars. Seatbelts can of course be easily moved from car to car, so we can never be 100% sure whether they are the same ones that the car left the factory with. Having said that, it seems to be more likely than unlikely that they were the original belts that came on the car

Yes, but it's only one of a whole host of clues that need to be added up and cross-referenced in order to give a more complete picture of the likely 'build date'. Comparing the engine block number to the engine block numbers of other cars ( bearing in mind that engines were not necssarily fitted sequentially ) will also be a clue, but the engine could have been fitted some time later than the rest of the car was put together if it was one of the cars that was allegedly 'held up' by the crank re-design. We then get into that philosophical question of the actual 'birth date' of the car: Is it the day that the car finally gets its 'OK' sticker on the window and is driven out of the factory, or is it some time earlier? I don't know how anyone else feels about it, but I can't help feeling that a car can exist with its own identity even some time before it is officially 'finished'. I'm imagining a small batch of cars that are without their engines, but otherwise complete, standing on their own in a corner of the Hiratsuka plant. They might even have been there for a couple of months. If the cars were completed - except for the engine installation - in November 1969, but didn't get their 'OK' stickers until early February 1970, then are they 'November 1969' build date, or 'February 1970' build date......?

Hi Mike, HS30-00026 & HS30-00025 were both part of a batch of works rally cars that were built specifically to take part in the 1970 RAC Rally here in the UK. The 1970 RAC Rally took place between 13th and 18th November, and the cars arrived in the UK ( coming off the transport ship from Japan in Belgium, and driven over to the UK on a normal car ferry by the Japanese mechanics ) during October. They were 'tested' a bit more here in the UK ( drivers and navigators for the most part never having seen them before! ) and fettled a little bit to driver / navigator preference, and were based at Old Woking Service Station. Now, it's a little tricky to compare these works rally cars to normal road cars ( the bodyshells of the pre-72 season works 240Z rally cars were quite radically different to those of standard road cars ) but they were given body serial numbers from the standard road car sequence ( in this case, normal 'HS30' RHD export body serial number sequence ) and therefore we can compare rough build dates for the bodies, but not necessarily completed cars. I think it's likely that the bodies for this first batch of RHD works rally cars came off the production line in early 1970, and from there went to the competitions department at Oppama. One of the things that's been messing up the story about the early RHD 'export' cars is the fact that sources in the USA were for many years putting out erroneous and negative data about them. These sources insisted that no RHD '240Z' had been built in 1969 ( even though the factory RHD export parts manuals contradict this ) and sadly this erroneous data stuck. It stuck to such an extent that we still have something of a battle on our hands to get certain people to accept that it is completely untrue. Luckily we now know better, and the hard data comes from Nissan Shatai themselves - the people who actually built the cars. Their data tells us that HS30-00001 was the seventh S30-series Z to be given a body serial number ( the six in front of it were S30-00001, HLS30-00001, PS30-00001, HLS30-00002, S30-00002 & PS30-00002 ) and this all happened before the end of June 1969.......... As we know, during testing of the earliest cars it was found that a crankshaft harmonic problem existed in the L24 export engines. Obviously this was not a problem on the 'S30'-prefixed cars ( L20A engines ) or the 'PS30'-prefixed cars ( S20 twin cam engines ) so production for those models was not affected. However, production of LHD export cars was slowed right down just at the point when it was supposed to be getting into full swing, and it is fair to assume that it affected RHD export cars too. This was in September to December 1969. There's no doubt that LHD export north American market cars were the primary volume market, but Nissan were taking RHD export markets seriously too. The fact that these RHD export markets required at least two different specs ( Australia/NZ market and UK market ) with differing needs / regulations will have affected things too. UK 'Type Approval' regulations were changed right at the end of 1969, and this caught Nissan slightly on the hop with regard to lighting. By all accounts, late 1969 and early 1970 was something of a crazy time at Nissan Shatai's Hiratsuka plant...... So, as Mike says, I think it is very likely that Nissan had built some HS30-prefixed RHD export cars before the crank harmonic problem was solved. They will certainly have built some complete cars, but there's also a very good chance that they part-built some cars and put them to one side until the new L24s with the re-designed cranks came on stream. From looking at cars we already know, it seems likely that this earliest batch of 'HS30'-prefixed cars might only have numbered around 20-something. There appears to have been a big gap whilst other matters were solved ( LHD export demand took Nissan Shatai by surprise...... ) and RHD export production never really got into its stride until late 1970. So there were 'HS30'-prefixed cars made in 1969 and early 1970, but we have to look at the cars on a case-by-case basis to establish their likely 'production' date. We have to bear that gap in production in mind, and also expect to find the details of the cars differing slightly to what we might expect, as the specs were a little rubbery to begin with. Tricky isn't it?! It's a pity the original poster on this thread didn't let us know how he got on with his car. It'd be interesting to know what he found. Pete ( Campbell ), HS30-00016 - great! Good to hear of another early HS30 still surviving. Congrats! I'm very envious. Cheers, Alan T.

Thorsten, I believe that there are many people who have met Goertz, and taken all his stories and anecdotes at face value as 'the truth'. You seem to have been one of them too. It is enormously patronising to imagine that the Japanese motor industry of the early 1960s could not see what was needed in order to sell cars throughout the world. The phrase "teaching your Grandmother to suck eggs" comes to mind. Some people seem to think that the Japanese did not know what to do, when in fact it was already gearing up to do exactly what it needed to do. Unfortunately, without any doubt Goertz was a story-embellisher and exaggerator. He planted the seeds of stories and allowed other people to water, prune and tend them for him. When they flowered, others picked the blooms and made them into elaborate arrangements. It would not be all that outrageous to call him something of a liar, I'm afraid. He certainly exaggerated the stories about his activities in Japan when he found that there was nobody who would deny them. It all sounded plausible, and put him in a favourable light. In actual fact, the Japanese companies and individuals he visited on his own initiative were simply being politely hospitable to him. Goertz would turn an impromptu afternoon visit - having tea and small cakes offered to him - into a "consultation" on his CV. You mention his "first order" ( ? ) for Nissan as the "Datsun 1600 Sport ( SPL311 )", when I'm pretty sure that you are referring to the CSP311 Nissan Silvia. This is a perfect case in point: The main details and body shape of the CSP311 Silvia had already been penned by Kazuo Kimura at Nissan before Goertz even arrived, and Goertz simply recommended some alterations. History in the west wants to believe that Goertz was responsible for all of the styling on the car, and Goertz fostered that belief. And yet Goertz also dismissed that car - so he wants to have his cake and eat it. He did the same with what gets referred to as the 'Datsun 240Z' ( when people really ought to refer to the S30 range of models, as seen at launch in 1969 ) and - by association - the MF10 'Toyota 2000GT'. In fact, he didn't pen a single line on either. Goertz may well have been dismissive of Nissan's "cheaper design", but it was none of his business to comment on. He had absolutely nothing to do with it. What you describe as a "fantastic GT form" ( Goertz would love your comment, as he thrived on people who believed his hype ) was really no more than early-Sixties zeitgeist, and the kind of profile that could be seen on any schoolboys' doodlings of the period. The 'Nissan 2000GT' was a completely different design to the S30-series Z cars. There is no direct link between them. It's good to hear that you are pleased with your HLS30U, and I'm going to cheer you on if you start to make it more like the mainland European market HLS30 model, which was tested by Nissan's engineers on German roads ( amongst others ) and equipped accordingly with attempts to address aerodynamic issues, higher spring and damper rates, stronger anti-roll bars ( front and rear - when you might find your USA car not fitted with a rear ARB at all..... ) and a good combination of 5-speed transmission and differential ratio. Above all, please don't forget that - despite all the "American car, made in Japan" type quotes you hear - the real designers and engineers behind the car were making a family of models to be sold all over the world. Some of the details on the cars were design concessions, so you might like to think about that when you reach for the handbrake lever, or feel that your right foot is getting a little hot Have fun! Alan T.

I agree with NZeder. Nissan Shatai would have had no call to be stamping the full chassis number on the strut tower when it was already on the firewall. In fact, those factory firewall 'stampings' were engravings - made by a fairly curious machine that was lined up on the bodyshell in a pre-designated position ( obviously on different sides for LHD and RHD ) which made any numbering mistakes somewhat less likely to happen. Only time I've seen a 'mistake' on an S30-series Z firewall engraving was when a chassis was re-designated by the factory ( turning an 'RS30' prefix into an 'S30' prefix, with a change to the body serial number too ). But these were annotated with a Nissan 'hamburger' stamp next to the changes to indicate that the change was a factory mod. Some European markets in the early Seventies stipulated that the firewall stamp ( and the tag in the engine bay ) should be made so that alteration was more difficult ( adding extra numbers or letters would be fairly easy ) so they simply added a big capital 'X' at each end of the chassis number, and they look to me as though this was done with a letter stamp just after the engraving had been made ( but before painting ). This was also carried out on some of the Works rally cars that I have seen, and probably because the particular cars had come through mainland European ports like Rotterdam and Antwerp. Some people might try to tell you that the firewall stamp is some kind of indication of the car being 'special', or that it was some kind of competition spec. Better to take such stories with a big pinch of salt I think. The only extra stampings I've seen on such cars were actually carnet stamps, used when cars were being temporarily exported, and applied by the Customs authorities ( matching up with carnet documentation ). These stamps identified the carnet paperwork relevant to the car, so there was no reason for them to repeat the chassis number of the car. They were not applied to every works car either. Depended on the circumstances. My guess is that this is some kind of later addition / alteration to the car in Australia, maybe to make the chassis number easier to read ( especially in terms of location )? I've often met people who were oblivious to the fact that their car had a chassis number engraved on the firewall ( it's often obscured by paint, wires and tubes ) and they are most surprised when they eventually find it. The fact that your 'extra' stamping looks to have been made by hand, with individual number and letter stamps, seems to indicate a 'privateer' effort. The fact that it has one digit different to the factory engraving on the firewall could be just an accident, or - if I was being more cynical - a little bit suspicious! Whatever the truth of that is, I'd say that you should treat the firewall number as the right one, and ignore the other one. Maybe even cover it up with filler & paint if it might cause some awkward questions to be asked some time down the line...... If only these cars could talk!

I hope you don't mind me chiming in here.... I'm sorry to say this, but I think you're looking at the bottom end of the market at these kinds of prices ( especially if they include shipping and all costs ). Working backwards to take off the rough cost of collection, documentation and shipping ( and profit for the sourcing agent ), this would only leave you a buying figure of something between 1 million and 1.5 million Yen, which is nowhere near enough to buy you a good S30-series Z in Japan. The plain truth is that the decent ones are chganging hands for much more than you are planning to pay. In fact, my personal opinion is that you'd probably need to double your budget to get something that you will have a chance of being happy with, and quadruple it to get something approaching 'concours'...... There's also a big difference in prices between early and late model cars, and you need to be aware of the differences. Japanese market model variations are quite complex, and younger cars modified to resemble older cars are quite common. You will come across 'S31' chassis modified to look like early 'S30' and 'HS30' variants, and even the odd bit of fakery with documentation to suit. You have to know your build codes, and have a good handle on what will have been swapped and modified over the car's life too. So - again I'm sorry to say this - I believe you are pitching too low to get a good early two seater from Japan at the current exchange rates. Alan T.

Arch S30-series Z enthusiast Katsuhiko 'Kats' Endo was given access to some of Nissan Shatai's records a few years ago. One of the topics he was investigating was the question of the first cars produced ( pre-production prototypes, crash test cars, factory production trial cars, etc etc ) and the first cars to be given full serial numbers ( most of the pre-prod cars would not have been given numbers ). Nissan Shatai's records showed that the very first car to be given a serial number was 'S30-00001' - and as this was the first car to be given an 'identity' we can effectively consider it as the the first S30-series Z. Second car to be given an identity was 'HLS30-00001' ( an LHD 'Export' spec '240Z' ), whilst the third was 'PS30-00001' ( a Fairlady Z432 ). Fourth car given an identity was 'HS30-00001' ( an RHD 'Export' spec '240Z' ) - so this effectively trashes the long claimed beliefs of certain USA-based 'experts' that no RHD '240Z' had been made in calendar year 1969..... In fact, it appears that Nissan Shatai only made three HS30s in 1969, and it looks as though the 'oldest' HS30 released for actual sale to the public was 'HS30-00003'. Nissan's 'R-Drive' factory parts lists quote chassis no. 'HS30-00003' as being "from Oct. 1969" onwards, so the 'experts' obviously didn't have an RHD export parts list book in their libraries.... As we know, Nissan Shatai's Hiratsuka plant was a somewhat chaotic place in late 1969 and early 1970. There were problems with crankshaft harmonics on the new L24 engines and other little faults showed up in the 'Kaku U' north American testing ( two LHD cars - one of them an early automatic trans-equipped car - were transported to north America in late 1969 to be driven in a huge arc which included much of the USA and into Canada ) that caused them to halt production of the Export models. Domestic model production ( Fairlady Z, Fairlady Z-L, Fairlady Z432 & 432R ) carried on because they were - obviously - not affected by these L24 crank harmonics. Just under 1000 Domestic market cars were produced before the end of 1969. Export RHD ( ie - 'HS30' prefixed cars ) production was also halted, but it seems there were logistical and tactical reasons for this. 'HS30-00004' may well indeed have left the factory in early 1970, but its base body may have been produced in 1969 for all we know, but it's clear that very few Export RHD cars were produced in the first few months of 1970. What's important about all this? Well, for years some of these USA-based Z 'experts' have preached that the S30-series Z was designed and made solely for the USA market. They want you to believe - just like they do - that all the other models and market versions are just some kind of side-effect or leftover from this big project to design "An American Car, Made In Japan". This is - to put it bluntly - complete bollocks. Naturally Nissan had a serious eye on the north American market when they were designing and building the car, and would have received input from their staff in the USA when they were working on it. It was always going to be the case that the USA market was going to be the biggest potential market for the car, especially if it was sold at an artificially low mark-up ( as it was ). This had been the case for the 510 Bluebird, and indeed it was the case for other manufacturers like MG, Triumph, ALFA Romeo, Porsche, VW and even Jaguar with their E-type - although you will very rarely see anyone try to make the case that such cars were "American cars", even if the USA was their single biggest export market with certain models in their ranges. With the S30-series Z ( often mistakenly referred to as "the original 240Z", as it leaves out the early Domestic models ) you will see people claiming that the whole engineering and layout of the car is biased towards the USA market. This too is nonsense. A close look at the design of the car soon reveals the fact that its layout is biased towards mechanicals that are derived from an RHD-oriented manufacturer. The design of the engine an transmission affect the exhaust routing, and this in turn affects the fuel tank positioning. Chief Designer Yoshihiko Matsuo admits that these factors were inevitably going to affect the overall layout of the car, and that even if they had designed the car solely for the USA ( which they didn't! ) then this would still have been the case. Nissan wasn't going to design a new engine and trans series just for the USA... But what they did do, despite this force majeure of the mechanical layout, was to design a car that very cleverly suited both RHD and LHD, Domestic and Export versions, all of which were made possible by clever design and engineering at the concept stage. These cars were always going to be made for a potential 'World' market, and could be adapted in build to suit the different needs of such markets. So there's no real evidence of priority in the design ( although there IS natural 'Design Concession' ) and it is clear that very serious thought was given to duality of use in componentry ( look at that scuttle base pressing for instance, with two sets of holes for either RHD or LHD wiper layout ). Many details and components on our RHD ( Domestic and Export ) cars are present because they were required on the LHD Export cars, and many details and components on the LHD cars ( and not just the north American market versions, but the few 'Euro' versions too ) are present because of the requirements of one or more RHD market. There are even details on every car - regardless of market - that were there purely because the car was designed and built with an eye to sporting / competition use. All of which is - I think - a very democratic and inclusive story. A story of a family of models / variants that were conceived, designed and engineered at the same time, and with equality. Unfortunately you just won't be told the story that way, because it doesn't fit in with the way that the car was introduced and marketed in the USA. That's why you'll read that "Car #13 has been found!!!" - even though it is patently not car #13..... Alan T.

For a 1974-on production 'Fairlady Z' model, emblems would be as follows. These didn't change until the 'NAPS' equipped 'Type E' Fairlady Z models were released, but if you had one of those you probably wouldn't want to keep the fussy OEM badges anyway: *Bonnet / Hood 'Z' emblem: 65810-E4100 ( superseded by 65810-N4400 ) *Front wing / Guard 'FairladyZ' script emblem: 63805-E4199 ( superseded by 90806-N4400 ) *Rear quarter vent 'Z' emblem: RH 76807-E8200 & LH 76808-E8200 *Tailgate 'FairladyZ' script emblem: 90806-E4125 ( superseded by 90806-N4400 ) *Tailgate 'Nissan' script emblem: 84814-H7401 ( superseded by 84814-R3065 ) See attached scan for positioning / rough photos: Hope that helps.

That's 29th March 1972. Manufacturer is Kanto Seiki.

Quality control date for that component is 24th January 1977 ( Showa 52 ), and manufacturer's name is 'Daiwa'. What component did you find it on, and are you sure that it is original to your car?

No disrespect intended, but how come your club 'expert' is not able to pin down a production date to anything less than an eight month period? The car itself will tell a more accurate story than that; There are manufacturing and quality control stamps all over the car, and the date codes are fairly easy to decipher. Compare enough of them and you can usually get a pretty accurate idea of the month and year of manufacture, if not even down to a couple of weeks or so. If you see see any '46' numbers then that's the Japanese 'Showa' year dating method ( Emperor 'Showa' - known as Hirohito outside Japan - ascended the Chrysanthemum throne in 1925, so 'Showa 46' is 1971 ) and these are used along with other dating styles depending on the habits of the particular component manufacturer. You'll see 1971 written as '71', just '1' or '46' depending on who stamped it, and on what. First - and perhaps easiest place to look is the base of the interior mirror. Just pull off the mirror ( it's mounted with a spring as a safety feature ) and see if you can see a date stamp in white ink. Because it will have been hidden from the light for a long time it should still be legible. Your car will have been put together usually just a few weeks after the majority of its components were manufactured, so the very first date stamp you see should give you something more accurate than an eight month window...... And to back up chris240, from past experience of 'Export' spec HS30 chassis number sequences I'd say that an October 1971 manufacturing date seems very likely, but if you take a look all over your car ( wiring loom labels, reverse side of instrumentation, steering wheel hub, electrical relays etc etc ) you will likely see dates in August and September 1971. Interested to hear how you get on with this.....

With all due respect to yourself, that History Channel documentary is a load of old USA-centric rubbish from beginning to end. Even the first line after the title sequence is completely wrong. "On October 22nd 1969, the Datsun 240Z made its debut in the USA". No it didn't! Utter bollocks. Possibly worth watching for ironic laughs though..........

The KPGC10 feature was in the April 2009 edition of CLASSIC & SPORTS CAR magazine. It had a Merc SL on the front cover. I think you'll have to hunt it down as a back issue now.....

But the pictures are in English....... Even without being able to read Japanese, magazines like Nos Hero are still more informed about these cars and more informative than the English language mags. You'll probably understand more about the car from just the pics and pic captions in the Nos Hero article than the whole Octane article. Please don't shy away from it with any kind of "I can't read that" complex. I found a similar thing with the article that Classic & Sports Car did on my KPGC10. They took some nice photos, printed them BIG ( to the point of spreading one pic over two pages, which is a complete waste of space and a good photo I reckon ) and got a lot of details wrong even after I had corrected them three times. That article was just eye candy, really.

Gav, I agree that ideally there would have been much more in the article. They took some fantastic studio photos, but didn't use very many of them and spoiled what they did use by putting that weird green tinted background onto them with a computer ( why??? ).......... If you can hunt one down, the December 2006 issue of NOSTALGIC HERO Magazine ( vol.118 ) has a six page article on the car that contains about 55 detailed photos and a lot more detailed writing on the subject. It's part of a 16 page section that they came to the UK especially to work on, and which I was pleased to have had the honour of coordinating for them. My good friend Hideki Matsui of NP35 came too, and I took them to see Kevin's car and the LY-engined works '73 RAC car of Gary Hicks. Compare the two features and you can see the different philosophies between the likes of OCTANE and NOS HERO. The Japanese mag is much more interested in detail, detail, detail, but still captures so much more spirit than the British mag. Nos Hero's photographer Isao Yatsui insisted on climbing up on to the roof of Kevin's garage to get some shots ( more difficult than it sounds, and quite funny when we couldn't get him down again ), and they even included a nice shot of Kevin's pet cat Basil...... I made a thread about the Nostalgic Hero magazine coverage over on classiczcars.com when it came out. I think you should be able to find it with the SEARCH function, so you might like to have a peep.