26th-Z

"1970 240z first hundred ever made" kind-a had me going.

Yea. This has been the subject of e-mail chatter for the last couple of days. Carl Beck and I have been talking about this one.

It may sound like picking it apart, and some posts are a little ugly, but this is called "critique" and it is an entertaining game we play. In defense of the car, we can't really pick it apart because all we have to go by are the photographs. Critique is a perfectly normal thing to do and as long as we keep it constructive and don't go down the ugly path, we can enjoy a conversation about what we see or don't see concerning our knowledge and the sales presentation.

Yea, interesting thread. Braided hose in straight lengths is still available commonly. The Germans use it. Braiding is close, but not correct. I have heard of inserting copper tubing inside straight hose and bending it to replicate the brake master vac. hose although I haven't tried that myself. I don't think one has to have the real stuff to score a gold medallion - just have the hoses one way or the other, braided or plain - not mixed.

According to my records 25410-E4600, assy - fuse block, was good up to 12/70 and was replaced begining 1/71 with 25410-E8600 which was good up to 7/73 when it was replaced with 25410-E8800. The long tail fuse block is 25410-E4600. My cars have long tail fuse blocks

Bryan, Add three grommets to my order, please, and let me know when you want me to send money. I'm in no hurry. BTW everybody. I bought a shift boot in leather and ordered the e-brake and pigtail cover in leather. I am very satisfied with everything. Chris

53 on the beach in Sarasota, Florida

Hey Carl, Kats and I rode down to MSA in his car during the convention in Long Beach. Yes, I have seen his car in person, up close. I don't know what he is talking about. Kats entered the daily driver class so that he wouldn't have to compete in stock and took home a trophy for his smart move. That's what I call "understanding the car show rules"! There is no confusion. Kats knew he would win. There is no such thing as "extra points". In the stock class, a perfect replacement part will score as well as a perfect original part unless the replacement part did not come on that particular model year. For example, a grapefruit alternator can not be replaced on a 1970 model year by the later version without loosing points for the wrong part. In daily driver, correctness of parts to model year is not judged.

I do not agree with you, Kats. Judging the stock class does indeed include original everything according to the year of manufacture. I judged with Jim Frederick and Charlie Osborne in Syracuse and Fred Buoni and Todd Wagner in Dallas. The cars we looked at were very very stock. Fabric hoses, original tires, everything. Over the years, I have seen original survivors as well as restored examples. I think the ZCCA does a superb judging and cars awarded their highest honors are very special cars. The ZCCA recognizes several different types of dealer installed air conditioning systems that were present on a majority of early Z cars and holds to those manufacturers because they were the most common and serve the greatest number of members. 26th had a York piston type compressor. A friend of mine just flew out to California to service another friend's Healey 2000. Funny you should speak of old Healeys. Don just bought his for $80,000 from a guy who just sold another at auction for $125,000. Nice Healeys are worth more than $60,000 currently. But so are nice Zs. I don't think you would argue, Carl, and we have seen someone collect them in the last two years, that nice Zs have gone way up in value. Hell, ask Dan what he would sell his Gold Medallion '71 for! I like the idea of testing how a car works. It would be difficult to test performance, but a car could be started and driven around for a short distance as part of judging. Good idea! Chris

I agree - Permatex

The cork gaskets are my favorite and don't seem to leak. Are your surfaces clean and do you use a sealant?

Wow! Spend the day at the beach and look what happens! Spring Break! Nice picture of the front suspension - Kats. Is that a plated finish? Very nice! I think one thing that needs to be put in perspective is the idea that judging and giving out awards is nothing more than something to enhance a car show. The guys who judge cars at car shows are guys just like you and me - volunteers. The trophies - although not $8 anymore - are not worth the time and effort required to win one, yet we commonly see what we refer to as trailer queens. Its a game! The ZCCA rules are purposley vague so that this whole process is easy. Keep in mind that the judging team can only spend so much time on any particular car. The car owner, on the other hand, gets to spend all day looking at and discussing the car. I encourage relaxation and enjoyment of the ride. My take on the modifications limits between classes is that the number of mods is only somewhat of a boudary. If your really do-dad your car up, it goes to Nissan modified - like track cars and race cars - rather than a few nice "street" mods for the street class.

Stock is the hardest class to judge because that is the only class where “correct” is a relative term. I would say that in all the rest of the classes the relative term for judging is cleanliness. My rule of thumb for deducting points is this: brand new = 0 points, used looking = 5 points, junk = 9 points. Look at the judging forms and notice how things are grouped. Points are deducted by the whole group of items – not each individual blemish. Cars are judged by a team of three guys; one doing the engine, one the body, and one the interior. The team always talks and all the cars in the class are compared with one another in an attempt to be consistent. Judges usually don’t look underneath a car. Anything you can see by only dropping down to one knee.

Oh! Hey, John! Yea, cleanliness.

We have many ZCCA judges frequent this site and I'm one of them. I have judged the last three ZCCA national conventions and I have been the lead organizing judge at the last two Z-Fests. At the last national convention (Dallas), I was made a chief judge and was one of the three judges for the medalion round. Every now and then, I’ll do a local hot rod show or club event. Mark Lambert was the chief ZCCA judge for the stock classes. Todd Wagner (Tidewater Z) is the chief ZCCA judge for all the modified classes and the last I heard was that Fred Buoni is to take over the stock class from retiring Lambert. These are all East Coast guys. The ZCCA judging software was developed by Paul Hollander within the very strong presence of the Tidewater Z Car Club which has many active directors involved with the ZCCA, like Dan Banks, ZCCA historian. A little further North, are Paul Gasparola and John Jefferey (Bad Dog Parts) and Jeff Fox. These guys pretty much make up the backbone of ZCCA judging. There was strong judging talent in Texas and California, but I have always worked at the national conventions with Todd, Paul, Fred and Mark. The judges at any of these events are guys just like us who will spend the day looking at only a few cars and running around filling out forms rather than enjoying the show. They are called volunteers. Jim Peters is going to do the Daytona convention car show in October. I may or may not judge.

Well...rust is probably the main problem. Other than that, they run great.

I have a choice radio I would sell, but I would easily want the prices that you have seen. That's cheap if you are into "Stock".

The stripe kit box is just the same as my visor vanity mirror. Check this out! I was just talking to Jerry about this...What other accessories came with this labeling? This is pretty early stuff. When did these first accessories get released? DOes Carl have a blurb on his site about this?

You bring up a good point, Marty. The stripes would probably put the car in the "Street Modified" class for ZCCA events. Personally, I wouldn't dock points in the "Stock" class because I know that the stripes were Datsun optional almost from the begining. Go Gators

That's pretty cool, Carl. Check out those white-wall tires!

Whew! Haven't seen anything like that in a long time.

Cut it up and part it out. It will take you at least 3or4 to make it worth that. Save the ID tags and screw them to a nice wooden plaque (made of walnut) for your trophy room.

E4600 is translucent white injected molded styrene with a chrome mylar finsh. It sits in the N/S position latched and I associate it with probably no more than the first thousand cars made. Because it is injected plastic, it has no contouring and the shape is quite angular. E4601 and E4602 were part replacements - upgrades if you will - and are cast pot-metal with a chrome finish. They sit latched in the E/W position. Good pictures, Kats.

Ask Todd about Carl Beck and tell him I said hi. Roof racks were also available from AMCO as an aftermarket accessory of the period. Snow ski racks were available also.

Thanks for the picture!