20 hours ago, w3wilkes said:

Another difference on the interior of my car is my map light is hooded and some other 1970 built 240Z's I've seen the map light has no hood.

My map light was hooded too. I thought a previous owner had installed that. I guess it really was original.

I recently sourced a hood-less one for "series 1 originality". Now I'm conflicted. If I leave the hooded one on, I'll have to refer to my z as a 'series 1.001',

On 6/19/2025 at 8:41 PM, inline6 said:

No-no, I said "My 12/70 (16530) is black. And my 6/71 is orange/yellow."

I never knew they made a black 240Z? Learned something today!

Interesting that you two guys @Johnz1971 @w3wilkes both have the hooded map light. Poking around a little, there was a doc put out by Datsun in Feb 1971 that described a bunch of changes to the 240Z for "1971 late models", and that map light hood was one of the changes listed.

But according to the document, those changes went into effect at VIN 21001. Seems that was not correct?

19 hours ago, Captain Obvious said:

But according to the document, those changes went into effect at VIN 21001. Seems that was not correct?

If I had stock of the new hooded map light and was running out of the non-hooded map lights, Would I use the new stock or would I spend money to get more of the non-hooded map lights made? It's like I believe there are cars post HLS30-21001 that have vertical rear window defroster lines because there was unused stock of these parts. Since these type things aren't really safety or emissions related I would not spend money on them if I didn't have to. I would also guess that this type scenario applies to my yellow defroster switch.

I should have clarified that if it was only a month or so to the HLS30-21001 "changes" and a line ran out of parts, I'd use the new part.

15 hours ago, w3wilkes said:

Would I use the new stock or would I spend money to get more of the non-hooded map lights made?

Oh, I totally get it and agree completely. It's just odd that Datsun put out a document that seemingly delineated the timeline. Sounds like they were trying to differentiate between the two and put a stake in the ground as to "when".

So here's a thought... Maybe that VIN of 21001 would be better interpreted as "We've been making changes over the past couple months, and as of VIN 21001, here's a list of what we've changed so far. Moving forward, all the cars will have these changes incorporated."

Maybe that's a better way to think about it instead of "As of this VIN, we will be making all of these changes from this point forward." and changing all of them overnight at that VIN.

Edited yesterday at 01:41 PM1 day by Captain Obvious

Yeah, to me the biggie is the change of the body vents from the hatch to the pillars, that is probably the "hardest stake in the ground" item for SN 21001. Is SN 21001 also when the center console moved stuff like the ashtray/lighter, no throttle slot next to the choke lever? I know how the cabin was is my '73 and it had the console I just described with the lighter in the dash.