White interior in 72

[IdahoKidd]

I have two 240's; a 10/71 and a 3/72 both 110 red/orange, both with white interiors. My question is: Is it white or off white? I don't have anything to compare them to and I am attempting to replace all of the interior in the 10/71. Black dragon lists off white, MSA has white with "off white" no longer available. I have sent an email to Les but haven't heard back. I don't want to piece together stuff from different places as I want it to all be the same color, including the seat covers. Anyone have any experience or recommend some one or some place?

Thanks!

Leonard

[Doehring]

It is white, not off white.

[mgmoreau]

Leonard,

Contact Mike McGinnis at Banzai Motorworks. He has been working on Z's for 40 years and his shop does concourse restorations of early Z cars. He sells the same soft trim as Les and is very knowledgeable about what was correct for these cars. He has been a huge help to me with my 72 and I have purchased many parts from him.

You can reach him at (301) 420-4200 His website link: http://zzxdatsun.com/ He has a lot of parts listed on his site.

[Diseazd]

I once owned a 72 persimmon Z. The interior was white not off white!

[Carl Beck]

Actually there are as many shades of White as there are any other colors. Ask any body painter how hard it is to match whites on cars. Today, 40 years later...you might find slight color variations in the vinly on the door panels, the seat upholster and plastic panels in the car. The trick is finding a vinyl dye that matches your seats - then everything else usually has to be dyed to match.

With that said - the original white in 240-Z's for 72 is what we call "white". I hasten to add that I've seen too many people use a very white white dye... and that is too blindingly white.

The "off-white" actually came in 73 - if you place the two side by side, you can see the difference. The reason the 73's are off-white is because Flame Retardant interior materials had to be used for cars sold in the US that model year. That new material was every so slightly - off white. Kind of in between white and light cream.

The "white in the Z" wasn't a problem - they sold very well in 73. However at the begining of the model run we started getting PL510's - Orange with Green interiors... very ugly... That is when we found out that several colors were held up, due to the new Flame Retardant Materials regulations. Nissan actually suppled new Black interiors for several of the ugly PL510's that would not sell otherwise.

FWIW,

Carl B.

[IdahoKidd]

Thanks for the reples guys! I don't really care if it is white or off white, just as long as the entire interior matches. I'll have a look at Bonzai Motor works this evening and see what the options are. Thanks for the link.

Leonard

[Diseazd]

My brother used to live in Moscow, Idaho.......engineer with Monsanto. Good elk hunting!!!

[Montezuma]

I agree with Carl on this one, I have an Off-white interior and had a hard time convincing Les that it was different in 1973. I got vinyl and plastic from him but it is too bright, it does not match the door panels or overhead. I talked to Jim Frederick and he said to use vinyl paint that is color matched to the panels that I want to keep. I can get a special batch of vinyl paint made at any paint speciality store. I really like the Off-white or parchment as I have seen it called. My seats have been redone in very cream color so I can't use them as my matching point. I used to see a guy on ebay selling parchment colored seat covers, he was using a copy of an original Nissan document that had the interior colors listed. The bottom line on the plastic parts is that they all come in black and are painted for the car. The vinyl can be special ordered if you really press it, the problem is the match, over the years of sun and dirt we don't really know what the true shade should be.

[bob m]

I have a 72 240z, blue with white interior. I ordered the white upholstery and headliner from Too Intense Restorations. They are the bright white everyone mentioned and matched the original interior. However, the plastic interior parts of the car faded over the years and were off white so I had the paint store ( auto paint supplier ) match the white with fabric paint and I sprayed the interior parts to freshen them up as well. It all matches again.

Bob M

[JohnnyO]

snip.....Good elk hunting!!!

MMMMMM! I love to eat freshly killed animals:laugh:

[Bonzi Lon]

This is a good photo showing what age can do to a 73 'off white' interior. It was all removed in 1980 and put in storage until 2006. They were cleaned the best possible, then the photo.

The door panel shows the armrest difference in only 7 years of being on. The plastic panels show what smoking can do, in 3 years time. The chrome strip was found on the floor, the blue plastic matches the car's color. The dome cover is up side down to show discolor drawn into openings, also seen around rivet holes. The vinyl is somewhat darker than I remember, could be the flame resistant chemicals used. The headliner material held the color the best.

I used SEM vinyl dye on all plastic parts. I needed a new tail finisher in 'off white' so ordered one from MSA. Like said before, it is black plastic sprayed with the same SEM dye I used on the other parts, got lucky. This part is of thicker material from OEM, and needed trimed.

I ordered the 'off white' rivets from Courtsey, and they were closer in color to the original vinyl, so they got SEM'ed to match. Not everything matches, but most is original.

Bonzi Lon