HS30-H

I have a box full of Hitachi radios (both MW and MW/FM) liberated from UK market HS30Us. If you look at the factory R-Drive Export parts manuals you can see that all the Hitachi audio equipment (including the stereo receivers and the 8-tracks) were available as optional equipment. European sales brochures and spec lists show the Hitachi AM radio as standard equipment.

I rather suspect that you just ate Grandma.

I think you might want to re-punctuate that sentence. It's a perfect "Let's eat Grandma".

The comments section on Bring-a-Trailer auctions can be a bizarre watch. Having live bidders commenting on the very thing they are [potentially] buying opens up the way for all sorts of trouble. Vintage automobile values require slow cooking. Blitzing the dish in a microwave is a mistake.

Punchline: In this unique case, the G in G-nose stands for Grille. Yes. It's a genuine Fairlady ZGrille.

Vehicular midlife crisis. In Fire Appliance Red, no less.

Are you talking about this forum? If so, you might want to reserve your opinion until you are a little better acquainted with it.

Except that UV effect would be stronger on exposed surfaces vs shaded surfaces, leading to marked differences in shade. I don't buy it.

I would agree with the likelihood pointing to that. Don't forget though that the seller says he took it off his new GS31, which points to a production date on, or after, mid 1976. Some may find that a reason to mistrust it as a reference for earlier cars. You think he refurbed the wood composite, but didn't bother to strip and repaint the spokes? I think its the original (Izumi) factory finish. Not to add weight to your argument, but here's one of the brochure images for the mid-'76 up S31-series cars in Japan. I have no evidence to support the theory, but I have a hunch that they might well have used specially made 'blond' steering wheels for brochures and advertising, simply because they showed up better for contrast than the production items:

But that's my point. It's not his 'English translation', is it? It's a third party algorithm which is not really up to the job of understanding the nuances of the Japanese language.

Maybe that's why the seller isn't describing it as NOS?

That's because it's not a "translation". Machine software simply isn't up to the task of 'translating' a small ad like this one. Nowhere does the seller describe this as 'NOS', and the steering wheel itself is not an Export specification item (the seller specifically states that he took it from his late model GS31 Fairlady Z-T 2/2) so it will be the shallow dish Japanese market type. The horn button however is an Export type 'Datsun' logo version, which the seller states was taken off of a Datsun Competition steering wheel he bought at the time and swapped onto his car. So it's pretty simple. He bought a GS31 Fairlady Z-T 2/2, took off the steering wheel and replaced it with a smaller diameter Datsun Competition item, but switched the 'Z' logo [plus 'trumpet' horn mark] horn button from the original steering wheel onto the new Datsun Compe item, leaving the original steering wheel - mated with the 'Datsun' horn button from the Compe wheel - in storage for possible use when the car had its inspection. The asking price might be a bit fanciful, but let's not put words in his mouth.

Interesting that you should cite that car. I shared some correspondence with John Coffey when it was being built, as he was interested in period data as well as reference rates for modern Bilstein monotube type struts, which he chose to use for the car. Of course, the P2P event is something quite different to the period special stage rallies like the RAC, Monte and Safari. They were pretty brutal by nature and highly competitive. Real car breakers. In some events the Works team were changing all four corners of the car more than once during servicing.

I don't think anyone is saying that. On the other hand, some people seem happy to dismiss factory settings and data without even knowing what they are. It's all useful. And when you are restricted to period-correct and/or FIA homologated parts then the parts that the factory used in period are far more relevant than any fancy remote-reservoir WRC type struts. Personally speaking, one of the things I like about owning old cars is the fact that they are old. Period tuning parts appeal to me. I don't necessarily care about "what works now", and I certainly won't be fitting that new inboard rocker arm design rear suspension system to any of my cars. Yes we all have to be pragmatic - I am pretty much forced to use modern tyres, oils and fuel in my cars - but a '32 coupe with an Ardun headed flattie is much more my cup of tea than a '32 coupe with an LSX crate engine, even if the LSX is "better"...

1968 VW Type 3 models had 'high back' seats. I owned several VW Type 3s in the past and I had both low back and high back seat versions. As far as I remember, the switch to high back seats was due to safety legislation (rear-end impact/whiplash) and perhaps VW were one of the earliest adopters?

The suspension specifications for Nissan's Works 240Z and 260Z rally cars - as used in period - are a moving target. They changed for every major event, according to the nature of the event but also with a natural evolution of improvement. So, for example, 1970 RAC Rally specs were different than 1971 Monte Carlo Rallye specs, and 1971 East African Safari Rally specs were different again, and so on. I think your Gartrac-built Bilstein monoshock setup is getting close to ideal for the nature of event you are taking part in. I have a very similar Gartrac/Bilstein set myself. Some very successful cars have used an almost identical setup and you just need to fine tune with rates. I think if you go back to first principles and build something else from scratch you might well end up with something fairly similar to what you've already got.

One of the factors to take into account with regard to Bring-A-Troller is that comments are pre-moderated. If the moderators don't think your sincerely-offered, helpully-intended observations (ahem...) are of interest or of relevance to the auction process then there's a good chance they simply won't get through their net. Meanwhile, certain 'players' are seen to be part of the in-crowd and even their most inane and sloppy posts get a free pass. Even when you do make the cut, if enough members of the in-crowd don't like the perceived tone of your trolling well-intentioned pithy observations then phut, you're 'unhelpful' and gone. By all means get them over here and see if it's possible to teach them the difference between 'Concours' and 'Concourse', 'Camaro' and 'Camero'.

I don't know about anybody else, but for me what I call the "flip forward" function of the seat back wasn't so much about quick recline of the seat back for driving position, but more useful to access the area behind the seats and the tool stowage area/rear deck via the doors. Maybe everybody else thinks about it in a different way? November 1969 Nissan 'Service Shuho' #184 (Z-1) calls the lever the 'Reclining Device' and the large knurled knob the 'Back Fine Adjustment Device'. The later design added more forward flip, but I've always thought of it as more useful for access...

Kats, I think a lot of people here will not know that two types of seat were available in the Japanese market from the beginning of production. We could call them 'Standard' and 'Deluxe', corresponding with the models that they were originally fitted to. S30-S 'Standard' model received seats that did not have the 'flip forward' handle, but S30 and PS30 models were 'Deluxe' models and did have the 'flip forward' handle for the seat backs. I noticed on my 4/70 HLS30U that it did not have the 'flip forward' handles on the seats. As far as I can see, the early Export market cars got the 'Standard' seats.

Everything I've heard - having talked to several people who worked for Datsun UK at the time - points to there being very little actual choice when customers were ordering HS30s in advance. It seems that, for most dealerships, cars were turning up from Japan and were distributed with a 'luck of the draw' on body colour. The customer would only be able to choose to state a preference, and then choose from what came into stock. Some of the bigger dealerships had more cars and therefore more colour choice per batch. Interior colours were fixed by exterior colours. I've only ever seen Brown interiors in a couple of UK market HS30s, and they were both #907 Green exterior colour. One of the ex salesmen for a reasonably large Datsun UK dealership told me that he'd had more than one potential customer give up on buying an HS30 because it took too long to get them what they wanted in terms of body colour.

Have you got the vinyl swatch page in your 'R-Drive' Export part catalogue Kats? Here's the illustration 103 page from my earliest 'R-Drive' Export parts catalogue, which has actual vinyl swatches for the Black and Brown seat vinyl textures. Blue colour is listed, but no swatches. I have never seen an original Blue interior in a UK market car and only one or two Brown. Normal colour was Black.

Is it from the gentleman's area from a whale?

Part of the 1970 New York Auto Show stand:

My advice would be to tread very carefully. Kanji has subtleties and variations which make it very difficult to transliterate from different languages and ideally you'd want a native speaker/writer looking over your shoulder to help you avoid falling into any elephant traps. You don't want to get tattoos of anything until you've had second, third, fourth and more opinions on it... In the meantime, here's a bit of food for thought: Your 'Pride' might be best expressed as 誇り ('Hokori'). The Kanji you have chosen for 'Performance' ('En') is more appropriate to a theatrical performance (it's a link to 'skill'). As you are referring to the performance of a car, I would recommend 走り ('Hashiri') or 高性能 ('Koseinoh') as they are appropriate to a mechanical object, and to movement. For 'Protect'/protection it might be better to start off with a different English word. Since I'm guessing the sense you want to evoke is one of looking after, preserving and curating, I would recommend 保護 ('Hogo'), but there might be a better phrase (which would mean a combination of two or three Kanji). You smaller 車古団 ( 'Shakodan') is OK, but 古車団 ('Koshadan') might be an improvement? It's just a touch more sophisticated. I don't want to put @kats on the spot (I'm sure he's very busy) but I'd trust his opinion on this kind of thing much more than mine...

Maybe you should put the tail lamps through one of your grayscale algorithm tests? The car has a '240Z' script quarter panel emblem, 'Datsun 240Z' tailgate emblems and rear side markers. I don't see a "driver". I see somebody sticking his head out of the left side window. My money's on it being a North American market car.