Mike B

Ron, I was searching the internet yesterday and came across this photo of two women in what appears to be a Datsun dealership waiting area. It was dated 1966. They are sitting in front of a large poster that shows the production process for a sedan and I thought you might be interested in that. Also, notice the brochure on the left side of the bench, the Datsun plastic bags at their fee with the phrase "100,000 mile Datsun Smile" and the glimpse of the mechanic in the service bay on the right. The lady in the mink looks a little high end for what I would have thought a Datsun owner would look like in 1966. -Mike

I sent this guy an email yesterday asking what his value add was to a poster that is still being sold by BRE for less. He didn't respond, but he dropped his starting and BIN price to $55 ($6 above the BRE price) today and is no longer offer to have it autographed by Peter for an additional price after the auction. I noticed that he is also selling the BRE 1971 510 Trans Am Championship poster. Not sure what he was asking before, but he revised his price yesterday and today and now it is the same $95 price that BRE is selling it for. I think he must just be trying to liquidate his inventory to break even at this point. -Mike

I would say that color doesn't matter at all only to a real collector, and even then it may play a part. For example, he may pass on a car he would otherwise buy if he already has one in the same color combination. For most everyone else I think there are color combinations we would love to have, others we could live with, and maybe a couple we wouldn't buy. What those colors are differ for each person, but I do think that some colors are easier to sell to a wider group of people and other colors are not. I think that impacts how much a car sells for and how quickly. -Mike

Anyone in attendance could vote for the Peoples Choice Award, but the other awards were voted on by the people with cars entered in the show. I guess I still consider that a popular vote instead of having judges score the cars. I'm not sure that someone with a truck or a 510 is qualified to vote which is the best stock 240z, for example. -Mike

That's interesting. I am glad to see at least one local show then that has judges. I have been to Canby, the Seattle ZCCW show at Performance Nissan, and the one in Vancouver BC and all were popular vote shows. So they didn't have different catagories for stock and modified cars? That seems odd and difficult to judge. -Mike

I would guess they made them solid and with a chrome Z initially because the molds were simpler to make than the indentations required for the white painted Z and the hollow back. They probably stopped making them solid to save on weight and material (expense). Maybe they went to the white Z to make the Z stand out more, so people would see it as a Z car and not specifically a 240Z? HLS30-00032 has solid chrome Zs on the quarter panels and a solid Datsun hatch emblem. The 240Z hatch emblem also has a chrome Z, but it is hollow. Have you ever seen a solid 240z hatch emblem Kats? Also, did they make Fairlady Z emblems that had chrome Zs or that were solid? -Mike

Congrats Arne! Its good to see a nice original Z win a local popular vote show for once, and not just the shinniest one that has all the wrong parts on it. -Mike

Hmmm.... the cardomain listing that Larry referred to above also shows a picture of what is supposed to be the Scarab ID plate of #153; however this car is red and the car in the ebay ad is dark blue. Here is the link to the cardomain listing and a picture of the ID plate is shown below. http://www.cardomain.com/ride/3128743 -Mike

Yes, but the ad for the one on Ebay says it is #153, and it shows a picture of what is supposed to be the scarab ID plate. See attached picture from the ad. Obviously there is a discrepancy somewhere. -Mike

So your car is the one that is currently for sale on ebay? http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Datsun-Z-Series-1-OF-18-1976-DATSUN-Z-ORIGINAL-CALIFORNIA-SCARAB-CAR-153_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ6187QQihZ012QQitemZ220267073326QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW -Mike

Great story Carl! It is a very small world indeed sometimes. Did the seller tell you how the car wound up in Georgia and why does the car still have Washington plates on it? -Mike

It looks like someone is trying to flip the posters numbered 48-500 on ebay now (I guess #47 must be sold). http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1971-Championship-240Z-BRE-Poster-Repro-500-Car-Poster_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ10076QQihZ007QQitemZ170249355054QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW You can buy them directly from BRE for $49, and this guy is staring them at $70 with a BIN of $80. He says he can get them signed by Peter for an additional fee after the auction ends. No doubt higher than the $10 Peter charges on the BRE site. -Mike

I wonder if Vicky's is the one they list as #189 in Florida in this ad. -Mike

It looks like this may be an original Scarab on eBay. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Datsun-Z-Series-1-OF-18-1976-DATSUN-Z-ORIGINAL-CALIFORNIA-SCARAB-CAR-153_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ6187QQihZ012QQitemZ220267073326QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW Sounds like it doesn't have the original engine installed by Scarab, though. Not sure how that effects the value, or even what the value of these cars are. -Mike

So Banzai is carrying them again now? I think other people had mentioned in previous posts that Banzai no longer had them. -Mike

What year car do you have? On a 1972 if you push and AM preset button it switches to the AM tuner and then you can manually tune to a station using the tuning button (on the right hand side I believe). The 1973 may be the same, but I'm not sure. The 1970 and 71 only have AM and have an autoseek function. -Mike

Yes, I am very fortunate that the Brocks live so close by and they are willing to share some of their time with Datsun and BRE enthusiasts. It is amazing that one person could have the Datsun racing history he does, be involved with designing the Corvette Stingray, the Daytona Coupe, have worked with Shelby, and everything else he has done. Like you said, the memories are priceless. -Mike

The Brocks invited me over to pick up my poster and a photo I ordered yesterday, since I only live a couple of miles away. I got poster #5 (I ordered right after the newsletter was sent out). I have to say this is probably my favorite 240z poster. The artwork is excellent and these are done on very high quality paper and the colors are very vivid. I think the other posters will ship out on Monday, so everyone else that ordered should be getting theirs soon. I also got to see some other items they will be selling in the future and they are also very cool. I drove #32 over and got to show it to Peter. He was very excited to see such a low VIN car in good shape. Peter also signed a Datsun hat the I got from Bob Sharp a while ago, so now I have both of their autographs on it. Peter said he helped Nissan design the Datsun logo on the hat (the one with the red at the top and blue at the bottom). Anyway, it was a great afternoon talking about cars with Peter and his wife. -Mike

From post #1: He just had the dash out to repair it, but apparently didn't swap out the bulbs and it doesn't sound like he plans on taking it out again anytime soon. -Mike

If I'm the Mike your thinking of, the directions would start with ... head east for about 4 days... since I'm in Seattle and I assume the car in the VA area. -Mike

I agree. No matter how bad it may look I'll bet there are still some decent early parts there. I can help someone put together a list of items to look for if anyone is interested. -Mike

I agree with Ron. I would think the dash VIN tag would be installed before the dash assembly was installed. The door tag would be easy to either put on last or replace if the car was delayed due to a problem requiring rework. I think we see more cars with lower VINs that are shipped later rather than the other way around. HLS3000048 has a door tag of 2/70 for instance. Obviously they didn't replace the dash VIN at least in that case. That is one of the more extreme examples. Most of the other ones are just a delay of one month. I think #26 has a 11/69 date stamp on the door, while #27 and most other sub 100 cars have a 10/69 door date stamp, so I think the door tag is more of a shipping date. Thanks for posting the information about the stamps Ron. Very interesting. -Mike

I found a couple of old posts that are relevant to this thread. The first shows another example of the dash marking with Alan's translation http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10575&highlight=kanji+dash and the second shows a dash inspection tag that Victor found in an old car (also with Alan's translation). http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6172&highlight=dash+writing. Alan's explanations seem to support some of your theories Ron. -Mike

It looks like Courtesy Nissan still has the filler necks. http://www.courtesyparts.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=CP&Product_Code=17208-S3074 For the hoses, search for a post Arne wrote up a post about which hoses are better to buy EOM and which can be replaced with non-OEM. -Mike

I went last year, but I'll be out of town next weekend. Here are some pictures from last year. http://www.classiczcars.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=3448. Mostly Z's with several Skylines (although I only took pictures of the vintage one, not the later models). -Mike