26th-Z

The two styles of early knobs. The ones on the bottom "teardrop shape" are the earliest.

My son-in-law did the same thing when I commented about the word "irregardless". Thank you for the interpretation, Alan! I didn't know WHAT he was talking about.

"You have to dumb yourself down to conversate with 95% of the people." Conversate!?!! You're dumbing down to "conversate"? What!?! Are you some Shakespearian type? Making up words again? The word is converse. Love ya SIteunseen, but I just can't help it. Thanks for the chuckle, Archie! http://www.wordgenerator.net/fake-word-generator.php

I saw the Japanese Art Deco exhibit and recognized the rabbit sculpture. That's what got me started. I bought a book on Japanese Art Deco and began to recognize a whole bunch about Datsun design and advertising. Dan Banks has a wonderful collection of Datsun "art" and we discussed the correlation. Thanks to Dan, I have reproductions of most of the posters. As a student of design, Matsuo san would certainly be aware of the style. I never got the chance to ask Katayama about his thoughts and some day I may go to a ZCON and ask Matsuo. Makes you wonder what was influencing the lines of the S30, eh?

I don't believe the story is that simple. The "story" is cute, quite memorable, and a reasonable sort of marketing response to the question about the Fairlady name. In 1958, Katsuji Kawamata, the president of Nissan Motors, Ltd. attended the Broadway hit musical “My Fair Lady”. It has been said that the performance influenced Kawamata san to name the Datsun brand sports car (SPL212) “Fairlady”. Brian Long wrote in his book; Fairlady Roadster to 280ZX, “He thought people would relate to the beauty of the leading lady in the play to the car!” Indeed. I wonder if Kawamata san didn’t view Eliza Doolittle as a Moga; the icon of modern Japan, embracing Western culture, jazzy and sporting, stronger, showier, and independent. I see too many parallels to ignore the inference. Kawamata san would have been fully aware of the impact Art Deco had on the global sophistication of Japanese culture. In the relationship between “fairlady” and “moga” would characterize the intention of Nissan at the time; to strengthen their exports with the introduction of a sports car and symbolize it with a name that promotes excitement. The name “Fairlady” remains to this day and represents a succession of highly successful Nissan sports cars; faster, stronger, jazzy and very Western. I can't think of a better place to post this: Deco-Japan_Release.pdf

Thanks for the links. I grabbed a bunch of pictures.

The VIN you want to look at is on the firewall of the engine bay - driver's side - etched into the firewall metal. It should say "HLS30-04044". April or May of 1970 manufacture according to www.zhome.com XS3 0T6285475 is meaningless unless the car has a salvage title.

I saw this at Zcon 2005

Too clean. Too sterile, neat, tidy. You're missing drips and runs in the paint. Splotches! We must have splotchy paint! And splatters. It's the splatter that matters!

search http://www.classiczcars.com/topic/28848-kanji-found-when-removing-a-dash/?hl=kanji

Bought them at a garage sale. They must be retail. The outside is a gel coating.

Jeff, Would you be interested in these?

That looks like turns 3 and 4 at Road Atlanta. Don Kearney in the lead. Are you guys interested in Japanese Grand Prix racing from the late 60's? This is the starting grid of the 1966 Japan GP. Four Nissan / Prince R380s, a Toyota 2000 GT and a Fairlady.

Hey! I found some more pictures. Here are the front suspension compression rods I was talking about. I also have yellow paint on the transmission brace bolts and differential mounts. The yellow paint was applied to indicate correct installation and torque. You made me giggle with your overspray, comment, Dan. Who the hell is ever going to know?!!?!! Here is my best oil pan overspray picture...both styles!

And these came from a 4/70 car displayed at ZCON 2005; all original, 29,000 miles. The photographs I have of my car are just that - photographs. But I have signs of yellow in these locations. I also have red paint on the nut / washer holding the front suspension compression rod to the chassis. I never made a map however I'll bet Mike McGinnis knows.

Here are some pictures I have, Dan. These two are from a car Mike McGinnis did several years ago - a gold medallion car.

This site has all the races video on demand http://www.scca.com/pages/2015-scca-runoffs-ondemand

Same guy

Congrats Greg! You had a whole cheering section in the bleachers at the horse-shoe.

I will come looking for you, Greg. Hope the weather is nice.

This is the exhaust heat riser Dan is talking about

Take your polarizing sunglasses off.

I was just going to say that you could qualify for the Street Modified class. Jim's advice about CLEAN is the key to winning. It's been five or six years since I judged and I authored the rules a couple of versions ago. The point deduct method of judging allows for normal wear in the Daily Driver class but is more strict in the other classes. On the other hand, I once saw a guy with a really nice stock 240Z enter in the Daily Driver class and blow the competition away because his car was so clean and so nearly stock. Rather than take the points hit in the Stock class, he entered in the more tolerant class and didn't get the points deduct.

These are two of the clearest pictures I have. Although this is not the earliest of cars, the brightwork is very nice and clear in color. One thing we noticed was the clamp for the coil. It is silver zinc on my cars.

The Road & Track road test in April 1970 reports a top speed of 122 mph for the HLS30. Interestingly, the Road & Track introductory article on the Datsun 240Z shows the 5-speed as optional with a 3.70:1 final drive ratio. Indeed the 5-speed transmission was optional for the 2 liter roadster at the time. Another issue I would like to take with the Petrolicious article is "S20 straight six in place of the normal car’s L24". The normal (Japanese home market with which the 432 is compared) car had a 2 liter straight six, not a 2.4 liter. In addition, reason number 3 is pure speculation. It would be possible to research that fact, but the writer didn't.