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There's some BS going on here. 13Ax14V=182W. I'm not sure whose backside produced a 13A figure. There are 2 (two/dos/zwei) 23W bulbs and a 3W bulb (on the gauge) in the circuit. Please invite the person who gave you that response to come here and show the testing. Until proved otherwise, I posit that someone is covering up for shoddy work. I am interested if someone can make me eat my words. I'll see if I can set up my scope with ammeter to look for transients that even come close to 13A

Pace yourself guys!

You've pretty much answered your own question there. And when it comes down to it, we'd have to judge it as a success in those very marketing terms let alone anything else. The press loved it. The project caught the imagination and support of influential figures in the North American Z 'scene' - including the kind who insisted it was a first for a major manufacturer (it wasn't) and "unique" in the auto manufacturing world (it wasn't). Those same figures still vaunt it today. We've certainly discussed the topic here on classiczcars.com many times over the years and our fellow member @26th-Z wrote what I believe is the definitive essay on the VZ cars. It was - when all is all said and done - a big deal in the story of the Z car's mid-life crisis. But as is often the case, the hype and commentary from offstage created unrealistic expectations. The misleading term 'Factory Restoration' was thrown around a lot and many swallowed it whole, including members of the specialist press. The VZ cars often get judged as though they were intended to be 100% factory correct concours restorations when that was clearly never the case. You can see the same thing happening in the current BaT auction. LOL. Another bunch of answers to your "why are the Vintage Z valued so highly?" question in there. It's the kind of people appearing in that video - and mentioned in it - who are part of the hype. High profile figures in the old Z car world, but often too the Typhoid Mary-like spreaders of bad information. Whilst looking in the engine bay of a VZ car we get the words 'Nickel' and 'Cad' plating thrown around (its mostly Zinc...) and a false story about the commissioning of re-pop braided hoses (Nishi san of Revive Jalopy in Japan was responsible for this and for many other previously unobtainable parts too). We even see a modern fuel filter pointed at as though it is some kind of ancient relic. Some typical 'Mr K Lore' thrown in for good measure when discussing early cars/chassis numbers. Larry Chen asks "why is it that the US got the early cars and how come Japan didn't get the early numbers...?" and Jaffe's answer talks about the '240Z'. Japan did get early cars (they got them earlier than the US too...) but the problem here is the congenital misconception that the 'US 240Z' is something over and above the whole S30-series Z family as conceived, planned, designed, styled, engineered and produced before the end of 1969. To the point that anything else is some kind of afterthought. We get Katayama's "PUSH" related as a one-man quest to get 'his' project made rather than the more realistic scenario of him lobbying for influence on something that was already happening. Apparently Mr Carl Beck ('Z car encyclopaedia') "can tell you how many went to England, Australia and its all very limited...", but there's no mention of Japan in their 'Z car' story. You can look at pretty much any volume - and non-volume - selling sports car of the 60s and 70s period and see the same story; volume sales in the USA. But I've yet to see any Triumph, Austin-Healey, MG or Jaguar being vaunted as 'Made Expressly For The USA'. VW shipped just shy of 400,000 Type 1 Beetles into the USA in 1968 alone, so 'Made For The USA'? Mainland USA was the biggest single potential market for just about any product of the period concerned, but I would like to credit at least some US consumers as being sophisticated enough to see through all the "we made this for YOU" type sales slogans. So, why are the Vintage Z cars valued so highly? It's in large part due to the influence of the kind of people who had eight of them, and sold six of them to somebody who now has eight. Larry Chen will make a video about them! People listen, and look up to, movers and shakers like that. Our old BaT friend Larry Stepp (he's a BIG fan of the classiczcars forum) made a prediction the last time this current BaT auction VZ car was up for sale. He said it would be worth 250k USD in a few years. There's the hype. It's not so much to do with the physical details of the object (which is not too shabby, to say the least), it's the perceived kudos and status within a fairly small cohort of people who are looked up to as sooth-sayers and mystics. Buy "one of the 37" and - hey! - maybe you'll even get the pleasure of putting the hose clamps on 'the right way round'...