No bumpers?

[The Wingnut]

Anyone experienced a hassle from law enforcement about not having bumpers? I'm thinking about pulling mine off. I saw a 240 running around today without them, and it really cleaned up the overall appearance, despite the car being an obvious work in progress.

[v12horse]

I do not have experience with this, but a friend of mine has a 240z and his bumpers were painted the color of the car and the officer was saying that there were no bumpers. Granted, the officer did not know what he was talking about because the bumpers were there, but if there were no bumpers, the officer would have most likely sited him.

I think bumpers look good, but if you have an early 260z and you really want it to look clean with bumpers you could take the bumper shocks out and mount the bumpers like a 240z. There is a member on this site that did that. You could even go further and take off all the rubber on the bumpers, or find a front and rear euro bumper. These are just some suggestions.

Ben

[Bambikiller240]

No Bumpers???

You could do that, and you could also remove the hatch and put a rocking chair in the back so the car looked even more like Jed Clampett's truck.

:stupid:

[LanceM]

I have mine shaved in the rear and only 1/4 bumpers in the front that are fiberglass. Never been a problem in the past but then I never give anyone a reason to stop me and "visit" along the roadside.

[The Wingnut]

If I were to remove the bumper shocks, would I need mounts of some sort to re-mount them, or do they bolt directly to the body? V12horse is right in that I have an early 260.

[sonofzzzap]

Well, the shave is more of an integrated look I suppose, and looks more like the arse end of a vette... I have thought of shaving my 280 rearend, but I worry about someone hitting me in the back and causing damage and then the insurance adjuster seeing theres no bumper..

[LanceM]

Wingnut,

You will have to use 240 brackets to mount them up, they don't bolt directly to the body.

sonofzzzap,

I agree that shaved it looks like it is suppose to be that way, so many of the new cars have bumpers that hardly look like bumpers at all. My own experiance is that with the 240 rear bumper, there seems to be more damage because the bumper was there if you get hit in the rear, in my opinion it was mearly decoration and there is little lost in its absence. You have a point about the insurance adjuster, but that is something I'm willing to risk.

[sonofzzzap]

I hate the big crash bumpers on my 280, I truly do...

[Bambikiller240]

"Shaving" the rear bumper does look good, but that is IMO different that merely removing the bumper (and leaving the mounting holes showing).

Same for the front bumper. Shaving and eliminating the indentation where the bumper used to be looks good. Just pulling the bumper (and not modifying the sheet metal) looks bad IMO.

On 240Z's the bumpers offer little to no "protection". Back in the early 70's, the 240Z was one of the cars used as an example by the Federal government when they passed the legislation requiring 5 mph bumpers on new cars.

[LanceM]

Interesting Carl, didn't know about the 240 being used as an example, too bad it had to be used as a bad example!!

[Bambikiller240]

It was one of several car singled out in the early 1970's. Mostly Japanese cars.

(Gee, I wonder why?)

A) US Car makers?

Unions?

C) Ralph Nader?

D) All of the Above?

[LanceM]

My vote goes to D Between the US car Mfg getting their collective asses kicked in the soon to come gas crunch days (the writing was on the wall by that time), Nader and his Corvair killing safety agenda, and the Unions doing what they always seem to do best, yep D....