Real FIA race car #26 on ebay !!

[Unkle]

Item # 4592398396 ! Historical interest . Please link properly ,

I'm computer illiterate .

[Arne]

The car is in the UK.

Auction #4592398396

[Virto]

That's just plain freaking cool.

[The C110]

Jeezuz, someone here has to bid on this. Guus, are you out there watching? Alan perhaps?

[Arne]

I agree. That car needs an owner that will drive it, not leave it parked in a garage. What a cool vintage racer!

[Alfadog]

Where is Chris Wenzel? This is amazing. Do any of our members know the history of this car? It's very early - but is it a real Works rally car?

[HS30-H]

Oh dear, here we go again with this car...........

What you are looking at is the remains of more than one Works-built 240Z rally car - all attached to a standard 1970 Fairlady Z bodyshell in the 1980s. Unfortunately, the vendor is misleading people with what he has written.

From the eBay auction description:

Datsun 240Z Rally Car Registration Number PTD 524K Chassis number HS3000026 Engine number L34 048315.

The car has been part of a 60 car classic collection here in England since 1984 it is in excellent condition and has been well looked after, the car was prepared by Datsun dealers Bradburn Brothers LTD after it was purchased from Stuart Coupe it has the works Chassis 26 and has been driven by John Bloxham at the RAC rally, the TAP by Chris Slater, the Welsh by Tony Fall and various other ones by Roy Fidler and then by Stewart Coupe.

It has re enforced chassis plus engine mounts works front struts, gearbox roll bar and Diff cooler, Group 4 brakes magnesium wheels works front seats some other spare parts are available at extra costs.FIA papers are with the car and are included .The car drives well but has been stored for a few years so would require an MOT .

The car was hawked around for sale 'on the quiet' for many years here in the UK, and was finally entered as a lot in the Bonham's auction at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this year. It failed to reach its ( private ) 'reserve' price and went unsold ( although the vendor managed to sell another 240Z in the sale, which was originally a Samuri-modified UK-market road car with race history, but which had been modified to look like a genuine Works-built rally car - with many correct period Works parts ).

The vendor does himself no favours by continually claiming that this is "Chassis 26" and "HS3000026" when it has been re-shelled and the original Works-built ( and very special ) bodyshell had been cut up and thrown away before he purchased the car. They didn't even bother trying to re-stamp the firewall VIN ( it still las the original Fairlady Z body number ) and the engine-bay VIN tag was simply overstamped with proprietary number and letter stamps - badly.

I still can't understand why the vendor insists on calling it 'the real thing' when it quite patently isn't the car that some of its parts used to be attached to - if you see what I mean. Surely it would be much better for all concerned if this was honestly described as having been re-shelled?

I took some photos of the car at the Bonham's auction, and have attached a couple here to illustrate the body number and VIN tag issue:

[Carl Beck]

Hello Alan:

Great pictures - I can't imagine anyone that looks at the car not noticing that mess.

Can you tell us more specifically what was different on the "Works" bodied cars vs the regular production bodies?

thanks,

Carl B.

Clearwater, FL

http://ZHome.com

[HS30-H]

Can you tell us more specifically what was different on the "Works" bodied cars vs the regular production bodies?

thanks,

Carl B.

Hi Carl,

This subject is FAR too complicated to go into here, so you'll have to wait for the book.........

But suffice to say that the 'Works' 240Z rally car shells were built in small batches, and included some pressings that were quite different to those of the standard road cars. Some of these pressings were thinner gauge than standard, and some were thicker. Some of them were peculiar to the Rally programme, but some of them originated from the 'PZR'. In fact, it is a valid comparison to liken the earliest Works rally shells to the PZR shells.

After being built in these small batches, the shells had hundreds of additional modifications performed on them by hand. The components that were built into the car were also very special, and these too had thousands of man-hours of work in them. Unless you have seen one of these cars in pieces you just can't begin to comprehend quite how different they were to the 'standard' road cars.

Bear in mind too that the Works cars are a 'moving target' for the historian. The cars in the small batches were all similar but had one or two differences, and cars in different batches could be quite different depending on the latest spec. updates and homologations, rule changes and event-dedicated preferences. A car built new 'for' the 1971 Monte Carlo Rally would be quite different to a car built new 'for' the 1972 Monte Carlo Rally - let alone the 1972 East African Safari Rally.

Unfortunately, the vendor of the car in question seems to know little about these cars.........

Alan T.

[26th-Z]

Late to the party again - sorry. Yes I know all about this car.

[HS30-H]

It gets worse. The vendor's response to the latest questions asked is revealing:

"THE CAR IS THE GENUINE ARTICLE I HAVE ALL THE fia PAPERS FOR THE CAR AND THE LOG BOOK STATING THE CHASSIS NUMBER OF WORK CAR 26 .The car purchased by Bradburn Brothers ltd in 1983"

Yes, he does have the old DVLA-issued V5 for 'PTD 524K' ( the UK vehicle-registration number that was allocated to chassis no. HS30-00026 after its Japanese temporary-export 'carnet' registration number ran out ) - but the big problem is that he does NOT have the correct car to go with it........

The car has been re-shelled into a 1970 Fairlady Z body. This re-shelling was performed by Bradburn Brothers Ltd before the present owner bought it. He may have been convinced that it was the genuine and uncorrupted article when he purchased it ( who knows? ) but it is NOT 'HS30-00026' any more, and should NOT be described as such. End of story.

The FIA papers shown with the car at the Bonhams auction are not peculiar or specially-linked to this car in any way. They are simply copies of the FIA homologation no.3023 which are still available to buy from the FIA by anybody.

I've been contacted directly by a couple of people asking me if this could possibly be the 'real' car........ Surely just checking out those pics of the firewall VIN number and re-stamped VIN tag should be enough to settle the issue?

[bpilati]

Boy, the shipping cost will be high.