HS30-H

I don't want to be too harsh here, but what exactly are people swooning at here? It's a nice car but it is nothing, nothing like a Works rally car, let alone the '71 East African Safari Rally winning car. It's not really much more than a paint and stickers job with a few fabricated add-ons. Do people understand just how special the Works cars were? I don't think they do.

If you pitch 'em, I'm always happy to have a go at hitting 'em.

Apart from the ones that did. Japanese market got factory-fit aircon system from the get-go in 1969. It was still available when the HS30-prefixed models hit the Japanese market in late 1971. Both my ZGs had factory-fit aircon when they were new.

And some of the UK/Euro FS5C71-Bs got the flanged output too.

When originally announced, it seemed that they would be limited to the Japanese domestic market. But after I think something like a year or more Yokohama took the decision to release them in Europe (I think possibly limited release in North America too?). In my local case, Yokohama UK are stocking them: https://www.yokohama.co.uk/Tyres/Car-Tyres/Classic-Car-Tyre/(product)/A008

I can recommend the re-issue ADVAN (Yokohama) HF Type-D in 195/70-14. Here they are on a set of genuine 432 type Kobe Seikos, but I reckon the size will happily stretch the extra inch to work on the 7J Kobe Seiko Works Rally Mag replicas:

Are the original floor pan sections still at hand? Reason I ask is that they might have had the passenger foot rest doubler mounts spotwelded to the passenger floor. Being an early production car it might not have had them (initially they were an extra cost showroom option) but it is worth checking if they might have been missed.

Two points here: First of all, your car is a 'Fairlady Z-L' model. Nissan called it a 'Deluxe' model and in their internal shorthand for parts reference a 'ZDx' and/or just 'ZL'. This model had the rear anti roll bar as stock equipment from the beginning of production in 1969, so the mounts on your car are correct. Second point: Please take care when looking at references. Yes, your car is a Fairlady Z-L so it already has some unique features not seen on RHD Export models, but equally importantly it is EARLY production, and that means it has some quirks peculiar to early production. The above photo is an example of misleading reference material. Its a much later car than yours. I'll see if I can find a better reference photo for the bolt-on accelerator linkage pivot that your car should have. Stand by.

Happy to help if I can, as - I am sure - are others here. Always good to see a Japanese market car getting some TLC, and especially so for a proper 1969 build.

You appear to have two screen washer bottle mounts, so I'm *guessing* that - at least - the bodyshell might have received a new LH inner fender/wing panel for an LHD car? On an RHD car, the screen washer bottle mount is usually on the RH side only. I see other surgery on the bodyshell (like the extended floor support channels) so not surprising if it has received some donor panels. The extra 'tits on a bull' washer bottle mount could easily be removed.

Great work so far! This photo made me check whether I was wearing my spectacles or not...

Negative. Doesn't look like Marugen Shōkai quality to me, and it is quite different from The Real Thing too...

Less than 5 mins in and already 'Mr K' is the messiah. No thanks.

Will PM you to ask if you will ship a pair half way round the world to me. Thanks.

Thank heavens for Lisinopril Dihydrate. Same old same old, isn't it? It starts out looking like it might be a little less USA-centric than other efforts, and then proceeds to go down the same old route with the same old tropes. No name mentioned until Katayama's ("enter Yutaka Katayama...") and everything up to that point presented as some kind of failure. Apparently Nissan - and presumably Japanese industry in general - only existed in order to service the cheaper end of the USA market? Do the people who put these things together ever consider that Nissan - let alone Japan and the Japanese people themselves - might want to have a sports car in their line-up, something to aspire to and something to be proud of in Japan...? Why do these cod history pieces always revolve around the USA market? I don't get how anybody who considers themselves to be any kind of automotive journalist or historian can repeat The Great Katayama Removing Fairlady Emblems Fable without thinking through the logistics of it? How many cars do they think were involved? Why do they think those particular cars had 'Fairlady Z' emblems on them, and why do they think the 'Z' part was OK'd by Katayama but 'Fairlady' wasn't? Where did the '240Z' emblems suddenly come from? How come they - and the 'Datsun' scripts - just happened to fit in the same holes? What inspired the '240' name in the first place, and who came up with it? It's all just a load of bollocks draped around a germ of fact in a much wider - and far more interesting - story. Deja vu. All over again. Thank heavens for Lisinopril Dihydrate.

Yeah. My tongue was rather firmly planted in my cheek and I'm glad if the point was taken well. When I was looking at Nissan's map - to remind myself where PNG actually *is* just as much as anything else - I was once again struck by how big Imperial Japan's empire could have been if they had not been pushed back so gallantly from the south. My uncle was in the Chindits in Burma, fighting the IJA, taken prisoner and ending up in Changi but at least surviving. He hated Japan, the Japanese and Japanese products for the rest of his life. We fell out over it. In contrast, my other half's father was an officer surgeon in the Imperial Japanese Navy, sailing around the Pacific on various hospital ships picking up casualties - including Allied combatants - and treating them on board until they could be evacuated to land based hospitals. Luckily he didn't hate the English bloke his daughter brought home (or if he did, he didn't show it) and it was fascinating to listen to him talk about his wartime experiences on the few occasions that he *did* feel like talking about it. He was the only survivor of his class at military college, all his colleagues killed at war. He apparently felt deep guilt in surviving. Heavy stuff. Sorry for the digression...

Apparently Nissan's distributor in New Guinea was called 'Boroko Motors Ltd', based in Port Moresby. 'Boroko' is a great pun in Japanese. By 1970 Nissan had distributors, concessionaires and dealerships all over the world. Their regular ten year report books (huge tomes with high production values) list them all, and I can see they had distributors ranging south from Okinawa and on to Saipan, Guam, Yap, Truk, Koror, Timor and down to Port Moresby before hitting Australia and then stretching out to NZ. Of course, this was the second time the Japanese had paid a 'visit' to Port Moresby via a similar route, and with the intentions of getting a foothold in Aus and NZ. First time didn't quite work out as planned...

I'd say that looks to be 'PNG' and then another 'P' on the far right. First destination Papua New Guinea?

Hard to say, isn't it? Without wishing to sound like a politician, I'm reluctant to come to a view at this point, LOL. From my experience (and its only anecdotal...) the dash structure column-support scribblings often seem to have their significance limited to production line 'banter' or cautions related to the dash content itself, whereas the glovebox base notations (I won't call them 'scribblings' because they were clearly written to be seen...) specifically relate to model/market/variant and content. Quite different. Of course, we - as mere civilians - were never supposed to know. This is factory stuff for factory people, possibly stretching into logistics/destination-specific shipping. There would have been paperwork pertaining to individual cars as well as batches of cars for particular markets/destinations, and grease pen marks on windscreens would have probably been used for road transport loading/dock parking/shipping etc, but the thing that strikes me about the glovebox inscriptions is that they are almost secret, in a kind of protected spot (if that makes sense) which is not likely to get defaced/altered/peeled off/washed off. Semi-permanent. I get the feeling there was a good reason for that. Of course, the right person from Nissan or Nissan Shatai could tell us straight away I'm sure. Has the be The Right Person though. I've asked both Yoshihiko Matsuo and Hiitoshi Uemura specifically about them, and they were both oblivious to their presence on the cars ("Wow. Never knew that!"). Not their department...

"Austo No.1". 'Austo' pretty much self-explanatory as an abbreviated form of 'Australia', but 'No.1' could signify many things. No.1 of a batch of Australian market cars going down the production line perhaps? Who knows. Nice one!

Not surprising really. Its a very nice spec, and done well. No 'helpful' comments from Lstepp4re a la Bring-a-Troller either. Win win.

Sent something. Not much, but I'll try to make it monthly. Thanks and Good Luck!

"598th Zee car made". I reckon somewhere around 1,600th.

ATE is the abbreviation of Alfred TEves Maschinen und Armaturenfabrik, a German company with a long history. They still look after their obsolete product range and there's a downloadable catalogue of 'Classic' spare parts on their website: https://www.ate-brakes.com/products/ate-classic/ I reckon your calipers were original factory fitment on a Porsche, and you should be able to overhaul them with ATE 'Classic' parts.