**** Avery Designed the Z?

[Mat Big Hat]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdtAwYUAqpc

(apologies if there's already a thread on this)

[sblake01]

Mat, I've seen that story a couple of times including on Carl's site. As far as any validity, I don't know......

http://zhome.com/History/Ford/Ford.htm

Due to the censor, I guess you'd have to type 'D1CK Avery'.....

Edited January 9, 2011 by sblake01

[SteveJ]

Amazing! He saw a Datsun 240Z in a dealer lot over a year before it came to America. By the way, I told Nissan that I didn't like the styling of the concept they developed in 1999, and sure enough, they ditched that design.

[xs10shl]

It would be great to see some sketches. IMHO the sketch on ZHome looks more like a 2 door full-size coupe than a hatchback. Headlight treatment reminds me of a 65 thunderbird with 2 headlights instead of 4.

(not my pictures. credit to image owners)

<img src=http://www.driveclassiccoupe.com/includes/images/Ford_Thunderbird/1965FordThunderbird.jpg><img src=http://zhome.com/History/Ford/Blowup2.jpg>

[Mat Big Hat]

dang i had a feeling somebody was gonna flag that youtube vid

in short: d1ck avery was a young designer who worked at ford in the 1960's

mr. avery claims he first penned the z concept (although it wasn't called the z at the time)

but when mr. k and other nissan execs toured the ford design studio, all the materials and sketches were removed

and the mr. avery was simply told the z concept had been shelved

a few years later he sees the first 240z car on the road and says "wow! that's the car i designed"

Edited January 11, 2011 by Mat Big Hat