NOS Body shell?

[Rick Bolus]

Guys if you have an old collection of Road and Track sitting in the garage might follow up on this bit of memory recall. Regarding 17, I was on the trail of it around 1980. It was in upstate NY where I have bought a couple early very low VIN cars from and through a racer then Tim Douthat, who was building Z cars in a chicken coupe in Shohola PA, near the NY Border. Anyway, I had bought a low VIN green wreck in 1976 one from Tim, and the ad for it was in R & T. I was a day late when I called the owner. Regarding the no VINS on a shell, I doubt the factory failed to stamp the firewalls as they went down the line or pulled one out to keep as a race car since the first ones were used for racing all had VINS and were taken apart here by Sharp. Non VIN body's would have been illegal to export or to even ship let alone get through customs.

[HS30-H]

Regarding the no VINS on a shell, I doubt the factory failed to stamp the firewalls as they went down the line or pulled one out to keep as a race car since the first ones were used for racing all had VINS and were taken apart here by Sharp. Non VIN body's would have been illegal to export or to even ship let alone get through customs.

The first ones used for racing never left Japan.

[26th-Z]

This is so frustrating.

Wanna see something rarest and obscurest hardly any one of you has ever seen or ever will see? Presenting the Silver Pennybody! Yes ladies and gurus, boys and girls, the lucious, exclusive, royal body forged from solid silver by twenty-six hundred year old monks living a cave atop Mt. Fuji. A glitter to the eyes, this body cannot be viewed by anyone under sixty in the bright sunlight. Even a slight glance in total darkness is likely to grow hair on your palms. The studly hungwell who took this photo gave up his life for the opportunity to see this body - a result of years of cruising porn sites in search of the perfect body - and only lived long enough to pass this photo on to the archives. This body is said to be THE ultimate vampire slayer, however the facts get a little blurred because the Silver Pennybody is hardly ever seen and any record is obscured in semantics.

Please don't pass this picture around. It is not FDA approved and may contribute to global warming. But Z car guys deserve a break every now and then.

[Carl Beck]

Hi Guys:

I have been contacted and "corrected" by Mr. Ron Johnson... Ron retired from Nissan Motors USA .. Competition Parts Dept.. acouple years ago. Ron was following this thread and had discussed this subject with Chris earlier...

I first meet Ron in 1972 or 73 when I worked for a Datsun Dealer... so I have a lot of faith in his memory and subject knowledge. He has been a huge source of information related to the very early days at Datsun Competition Parts Dept. and Mortorsports Dept. here in the USA....

1. Ron states that he is certain, Nissan USA did not supply any white bodies prior to the 10 280ZX's. To his knowledge all 240-Z's raced in the USA were built from production cars - with VIN's.

2. Ron states that "white bodies" were pulled off the production lines prior to receiving a chassis/body stamped VIN's. Bare bodies were sent to the production lines, then matched up with a Build Sheet.. and only after their future was defined by the build sheet - did the VIN's get stamped into them... So Alan's reasoning seems to be on the money... ie "this body shell IS RLS30 00017"...

So "white bodies" were pulled at the end of the body shell line - but prior to going to the final assembly lines.

3. Ron tells me the correct term is "Dollar" not "penny" cars - for the production cars sold to the teams.

Ron is convinced that RLS30 00017 had to be a regular production car - stripped down by someone. It is possible that BSR stripped it down to have a spare body ready when needed for SCCA or IMSA competition in these days...

FWIW...

Carl B.

Carl Beck

Clearwater, FL USA

http://ZHome.com

[sakijo]

Wanna see something rarest and obscurest hardly any one of you has ever seen or ever will see? Presenting the Silver Pennybody! Yes ladies and gurus, boys and girls, the lucious, exclusive, royal body forged from solid silver by twenty-six hundred year old monks living a cave atop Mt. Fuji.

Hmmmmm . . . . . There's a number stamped on the firewall that looks like "HLS30-00026." I'm not too sure . . . the image is grainy . . . .

[sakijo]

Bearing in mind this is an Englishman trying to explain a Japanese term to an American here ( Kats would probably be the best person to answer the question ) :nervous: :

'Sha' = Car ( quite literally derived from carriage, but the Kanji has its roots in the symbol for a wheel I believe ).

'Tai' = Body ( such as the body of a coach, carriage or other wheeled vehicle ).

'Ban go' = Number ( although the two Kanji characters need a little more explanation than that ).

So let's call it 'Car Body Number'.

Of course, the term 'Shatai Bango' in the vernacular implies inclusion of the Series and Model Type ( 'S30' / 'PS30' / 'HS30' etc etc ) as well as the actual body serial number, and also does not include the prefixes and suffixes that the factory used internally to identify the sub-model and variant more closely.

That's my 'translation' anyway.

Alan T.

Shatai 車体　means car body or chassis (of a carriage) according to my big Japanese dictionary.

Bango 番号　means number according to same dictionary.

So, Alan is correct, Shatai Bango literally means car body number.

BTW, the kanji for "sha," I am told, derives from a cart. Looking at the kanji, it looks like a cart when viewed from above - the box in the middle is the cart, the lines on either side are the wheels, and the vertical line running through them is the axle.

The difficulty with Japanese is that 車　can be read as "sha" which means vehicle or car; but it can also be read as "kuruma" which means wheel and also wheeled vehicle. So much for today's Japanese lesson.

[HS30-H]

An interesting question is why Nissan haven't expressed interest in obtaining this S30 for a possible museum slot?

Hi daddz,

Well - they probably didn't know about it still being around, and probably still don't ( and are unlikely to be making it their business to know about it ).

There really isn't a regime in place to procure and curate this kind of thing. They don't have a proper corporate museum in Japan that would compare to those built by the likes of Toyota, Honda or even Subaru. I heard talk of a 'museum' section or floor being incorporated in the new Nissan HQ that is being built in Yokohama, but this seems likely to be a token gesture rather than purpose built shrine to their past.

They have a big collection of cars based at Zama ( 'The Nissan Historic Car Collection' ) but a proper interactive museum for the general public to visit is still a long way off. That's Nissan for you.

Ron is convinced that RLS30 00017 had to be a regular production car - stripped down by someone. It is possible that BSR stripped it down to have a spare body ready when needed for SCCA or IMSA competition in these days...

No disrespect to Ron ( hello Ron ) - but having personally clapped eyes on the unibody in question I would dispute most strongly the assertion that it had ever had a panel hung on it - let alone been a complete car at some point. Despite its current condition ( and all that it has been through ) I think it is easy to see that it has never been built into a complete or even semi-complete car.

Line it up next to the Silver Pennybody ( otherwise known as HLS30-00026 ) - even after Chris has it ready for paint - and I reckon you'd easily see the difference. Hard to quantify and express - but if you saw all those virgin wiring loom tabs and the myriad other details you might start to understand what I mean when I say that it smells like it has always been a bare 'shell.

Perhaps Andy might pop off a few detail shots next time he goes over to where it currently resides, and post them on this thread for the unbelievers to chew on?

Alan T.

[HS30-H]

Shatai 車体　means car body or chassis (of a carriage) according to my big Japanese dictionary.

Bango 番号　means number according to same dictionary.

So, Alan is correct, Shatai Bango literally means car body number.

Thanks Miles,

Attempts at 'Translating' Japanese into English can be a real can of worms, so I'm thankful for your input.

Cheers,

Alan T.

[ZHeadV8]

Hi Guys:

Ron is convinced that RLS30 00017 had to be a regular production car - stripped down by someone. It is possible that BSR stripped it down to have a spare body ready when needed for SCCA or IMSA competition in these days...http://ZHome.com

Carl,

As Alan has pointed out, this is very evidently NOT the case when you inspect the shell in person. The easiest way to add some credance to the whole "NOS" discussion is for me to take some photos and post them for all to see. I will endeavour to get over to my engineer's and take some pictures ASAP.

The shell is definitley brand spanking new, definitely has never been even partially assembled into a car and definitely carries the chassis number RLS30 - 00017 stamped into the bulkhead.

How Nissan sent it to Bob Sharp, whether it was pulled directly from the production line under the "penny shell" idea or sold as a full priced spare who knows ? I certainly don't, all I do know is that it is the only brand new S30 shell I have ever even heard of, let alone come across or seen with my own eyes.