Were there ever any metal 'Datsun' fender emblems ? I've only ever seen plastic ones for sale.

If I'm not mistaken the emblems were always plastic on the Z. The only metal ones I've ever seen were on a 510(Bluebird?). And the font style was different. Maybe the oldest 69/70 Z's were metal. Hey Chris(26thZ) what do you think? My 71/72/73 were all plastic.

Chris

Yes, metal fender emblems for the early cars. In fact, all metal emblems on the early cars except the hatch grills which I have only seen in plastic. "kats" has the best info site on this stuff.

http://www.geocities.jp/datsunz903/

There have been discussions over the "240Z" on the hatch and the quarter panels. We commonly see the Z filled in white. Early emblems came in metal with white Zs, but the earliest Zs were chromed. The emblems are also hollow cast and kats does a great job describing the different castings. I have one (the only one I have ever seen) quarter emblem 240Z that is solid cast.

The metal fender "Datsun" emblem looks the same as the plastic ones. The Datsun is filled white and the background is black.

Here is the solid quarter emblem. I got into a big eBay battle over this baby.

Original emblems in all markets and on all of the first Z models ( domestic and export ) were die-cast 'pot' metal.

No idea when the injection-moulded plastic emblems started to be phased in though.

I've got a couple of pot-metal "Datsun" lower front wing / fender emblems that came off one of my old cars. That was a 1973 UK-market HS30, and I suspect that they were original.

Alan T.

Edit: Sharpshooter 26th-Z beat me to the draw!

Any idea what a fair market price would be on these? [die-cast]

Going from average to restored/pristine?

Dave

I'd go with 26th-z and HS30-H on this. Early emblems all metal except rear hatch grilles which have always been plastic. I do know that Charlie Osborne from zeddfindings was searching for metal rear hatch grilles a year or so back, so perhaps they do exist?

Originality aside, I have sought to get a metal set of emblems because in my experience they are much less likely to break off their mounting tabs than the plastic ones. Unfortunately the rear hatch grilles (plastic only?) seem to be almost impossible to remove from the hatch without breaking the mounting tabs off.

Zedrally, I have recently bought a pair of metal fender emblems for about $35 off ebay, which were in above average condition. I did get outbid on a set which were probably in far better nick that went for $90odd.

regards

Andrew

my 10/71 has meatal..

Hi All,

I have a early 260Z 2+2 and all fender and rear side hatch emblems were plastic. The only exeption was the hood emblem, which was solid metal. The reason I know this is because the thing came off while driving and cracked the windshield.

rbm260z