Originally they matched the color of the hood.

My 77 is light gold or whatever the original gold color is , but I have the vents painted gloss black.

I am however starting to put together some pics of Z's in other colors as I am going to have the car repainted and have never been wild about the gold color even though everyone who sees the car likes it as it is. The interior is all black, the exterior is the gold with the hood vents in gloss black and then a gloss black stripe along the rocker panel, chrome rims with the origianal rust free chrome bumpers.

The car was purchased 5 years ago from a guy that was 72 at that time, the orig owner , mileage 71,400 , now has 82,000 on it , paint still looks good but I didnt like the color when I purchased the car, but I did like the mileage and overall condition as well as the records the guy had on it , garage kept ( and the garage was very neat as well) . I just want a color that pops or a different color with a good looking rally stripe set up for the accent.

Back to the vents, they or all the 77's and 78's ( owned a 78 from 77-93 ) had the vents painted the same color as the hood. Alot of people change them and go with something as an accent color.

jharmon, stephen

thanx for the cover..

but I still see some confusion about the vents color, Stephen said that they were gloss black (same as mine) and Carolina Z says that they matched the hoods color..

in stephen's case, didnt you buy them from an owner who had a black car??

coz in my opinion I think that they matched the hood and that is because of the vents in the 280ZX 1983, the vents match the color of the hood..

besides that when the are black on my car they look like that there is something that doesnt belong to the carspecoally when they are gloss:s

thanks to all

and who is Ed? how can I ask him?

so u mostly agree on that the vents on the hood should have the same color as the hood right?

and is there a cover under the vent on both sides or only on the left side? coz I have only one on the drivers side!?

"Ed" is a member. His name on the site is.........."Ed" Send him a PM?

However, he's a 240Z guy, not sure if he'll know about a 280Z. The person who sugested you ask Ed was talking about the color of the tail light finisher.

aha that's exlpains it, coz I noticed that he has a red 240 with no vents :nervous:

You know, thinking back on it and looking at the pictures of my car from when I purchased it, the vents did match the car's color. I painted them. It was long enough ago that I had forgotten. I removed all the trim such as the rear louver, rear spoiler, mirrors, grille, taillight finisher, etc. and painted them satin black. So I would say that the correct color for the vents is the color of the car.

an older Z guy just told me that he could sworn that the vents were black originally!?

didnt they produce Z's with black vents and colored some other years?

coz my Z has bleck ones, never painted, just clean plastic! would that mean that they were originally black or they were fitted on black Z before??

coz Hrududu and ncz claim that they were black!

I have Road & Track magazines going back to mid '77. The Datsun ads in those magazines all show the vents painted body color. In addition, take a look at the ad in this thread:

http://classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19435

Hey BuDavid, just for clarification, I said I thought they were body color. I shouldn't have mentioned the tail light finisher