Well. I just recently got my hands on a 71 240z. It appears that the car use to be orange. But unfortunately someone removed the paint sticker on the radiator support and painted the entire engine bay black. The paint sticker has been removed. Looking at the engine bay there are some places where the black paint is pealing and I can see a significant amounts of orange(ie firewall). I also looked under the dash and found orange painted there as well(nothing has been painted there). The floor boards in the car(was left of them) are orange and the jack storage location is orange. The lid. Any other way that I can be determine if it was original orange or not. Thanks.

Sand through some of the orange you can see to check for other colors under it?

I strongly suggest that what you have already seen is pretty conclusive. It was most probably 918 Orange originally.

If your paint code is gone in the engine bay you just might have a hard time finding out the true color. As Arne said you have pretty much figured out the original color is going to be the orange. You can try this link here to find out what matches the best.

http://zhome.com/History/ZColorGallary/

You can always go down to the local auto paint store and look thru the books they have and compare the colors.

Remove the ash tray and look at the paint on the transmission hump under the console. But, as has already been stated, it looks like you have already determined that the car was originally orange. A great color, by the way, but then my opinion is biased!!!

I would have bought an orange one in a heartbeat, if I could have found a good candidate in my price range when I was shopping. But yellow is good, too.

Cool guys. Thanks. I wanted an orange as well.

I have the same thing in my engine bay of my white 72 z. Black coming off grrrr... I'll have to pull then engine just to strip and repaint...

I've seen a few Z cars with the engine bay painted black. From what I know, the engine bay was originally painted the same color as the body. Seems kind of like an old American muscle car kind of thing to paint it black.

My engine bay is painted black. It looks like sh!t with all the black paint chipping off. Plus the PO had it painted gray instead of just keeping original color. Which is 305 light blue. Plan on taking it back to 305 one of these days.

Just be careful that you don't catch WIAT fever. Ask Beandip, he had the same problem.....2.5 years ago!

E

I really like the light blue paint on the early Z cars. I had my eye on one, but waited too long to try and contact the owner. I spotted it sitting at the back of a construction company lot in a small town nearby. It had been there for a couple of years that I can recall. But, last fall I was back in the area and it was gone...

I don't plan on catching that bug I have it but I have it under control

I wish it would have been light blue or the 110 red. That color fades so beautiful that it turns orange. At least that was the color of the last 280 I had 110 red/+15 yrs Orange