Not exactly. They had to identify the car and the adr's it complied to. Whatever the car was called got stamped on the compliance plate, regardless of what intake manifolds, or spring rates it had. If it was called a 240K SSS, or 240K XYZ that would have been stamped on the plate. There were no Legal rules at to what could be called a GT, Car companies can pretty much call a car whatever they want. They could have made a 120Y GT if they wanted.

What im interested in is what make a 240K GT different to a GL, not whether it had a little badge on it proclaiming it to be a GT. And is seems like your the right person to ask.

So, any pics of the intake manifold? how many turns on the springs? What other differences are there between a GL and a GT.

So the first batch of 240K's were GTs? Were they badged as GT's or GL's?

And they have 4 speed gearboxes?

That might explain why my shifter only goes up to the number 4.

Maybe this would be better starting a new thread on the 240K GT, and letting 240kconvertible have his thread back.

You're right, a new thread is much better idea!

In the case of Oz cars there wasn't a problem with the ID as each car had the option codes on the build plate.

Those determine what the car is from a legal standpoint

eg ALL Ford Falcon GT's are build code JG33 for a 4dr and JG66 for a 2dr, Chrysler had E38, E49 to id engines etc

The Japanese cars didn't have this level of detail in the ID plate so Freds C110 GT has the same code as Joes C110 hardtop (both are KHGC110). Thus the insistence from Federal Transport that the manufacturer ID it by description in the ADR plate.

Whether there was much (or any) difference between the physical cars wasn't in question since that was up to the manufacturer.

The legal eagle points out that this was the beginning of the 'truth in advertising' efforts in Oz.

Anyway, what we are really interested in is the first batch of cars.

Recollections of the dealers around at the time together with the published articles indicate that all the 2dr hardtops were GT's and the 4dr sedans didn't have anything other than 240k.

No-one seems to know exactly how many cars were in the first batch or whether there were even any 4drs in it!

I've searched high & low without success. Customs would have the info somewhere(!) but have no idea where and are not prepared to help. Nissan just don't even answer queries on anything earlier than about 2005.

One former dealer tells me that he saw the cars at Datsun Australia before release and can't recall any 4drs. He is of the opinion that there wasn't a lot of them as the major line was the 180B.

Published reports from the time only refer to the GT and give no indication of quantity or body types other than the tested 2dr.

A small clue has surfaced in that there were only three ships from Japan off-loading in Sydney and one more in Melbourne during the period the cars had to arrive.

The vessels are all pretty much the same size and stevedores familiar with transport then reckon there wouldn't have been more than about 80 cars as deck cargo and at most around 100 as hold cargo (in each vessel).

Since it's unlikely that the batch would have been split across ships (they were a 'toe in the water' after all) and the K is pretty much as big as the hold access could take on those early ships then we have a possibility that the first sanple batch was less than 80 even if all the deck space was used.

Compared to modern ships those things were toys!!

So we can only assume that what we have is a GT unless we are lucky enough to have the ADR plate tell us.

As there is at least one car I can document as having that plate with the description (see attached) then the probability is that Nissan DID use the description including GT on those cars.

It also helps that the first batch could not have been ADR plated later than March 73 as Nissan was by then already telling motoring writers that the cars were going to be GL's.

So if it's not a 2/73 or maybe 3/73 ADR plate then Nissan themselves were publicly stating that they were not GT's, they were GL's.

What physical differences were there?

All GT's seem to have had MPH speedos and imperial gauges, although early GL's also were Imperial

Intake manifold (see attached)

Electric fuel pimp on GT, mechanical on GL

Front springs (GT 6.75, GL 7.25 turns)

Rear springs (GT 7.75, GL 8.25 turns)

Dampers ('shock absorbers')

Badges (front, rear, sides and door trim)

The upload does some strange things !

The attached images should be better.

Nothing in the FSM in the way of part no's but you should have that from the parts book.

Interesting to note that Nissan used 'P' to specify the G18 engine in the 240K when they apparently stayed consistent in using 'P' to specify the S20 engine in the Skyline.

Just those two pages alone are a pretty clear indication that as far as Nissan was concerned the 240K may have shared the same basic body with the Skyline but that was all.

Codes are not even remotely related.

The G16 and G18 engines shown are unmistakably the old Prince four cylinder units!

Did the Skyline use those or L4 engines? I have no idea whether the Skyline even had 4 cylinders available.

An observation from a former Datsun dealer was that the second manifold could well be from the L20(a) Laurel engine. Apparently that used a different manifold again, possibly somewhere in between in configuration.

Must get myself a C110 Skyline Factory Service Manual. Then learn Japanese so I can read the dang thing.

It would be VERY interesting to thoroughly compare the specifications of the C110 Datsun 240K and the C110 Nissan Skyline.

Found a German 240K GT sedan article, but its in German.

http://www.datsun.de/html/body_testberichte.html

My German is very rusty so it will take some time to translate.

One thing I did notice on first scan through is that the hardtop is specified at 1240kg.

That's a LOT heavier than the 1973 240K GT hardtop which was specified at 1130kg.

That would indicate there were some pretty significant changes!

Skylines in Japan did use the G16 and G18 motors in the non-GT series at that time. GTs had the six cylinder motors. I wish I could look at the parts CD that I bought, but it was packed up in the move and won't be seen until January. By then this will have been resolved.

A better image of the engine bay before I started changing things.

Note the Mitsubishi Electric fuel pump on the right hand tower.

Physically spot-on alignment to the built in weld nuts in the tower and had Nissan style 6mm bolts securing it.

The wiring mated to the 240K harness tidily and even used the oddball 8mm spade on the power wire.

Blanking plate on the head, no mechanical pump.

Maybe the very first of the 240K's had these parts, later deleted as an unnecessary expense.

I owned 2 240K GL 2 doors. The earlier one had quite differant inlet & exhaust manifolds, but the differance seemed due to adaption of antipolution gear. On the later one, there was a "heat stove", and a flap arrangement to divert exhaust gas to the base of the inlet manifold & heat it during startup. The two manifolds were bolted together. The earlier engine had seperate manifolds.

Looking at the two I suspect that the earlier one would perform better, the exhaust manifold had straighter better looking path, and there was a little less complicated crap involved. IIRC the later car also had EGR, while the early one did not.

This is from Racing Car News Jan.1973 page 15.

A bit more period info to digest.

Art, is your GT #302 with build date 2/73 (can't quite make it out on the plate)? mine is #280 with build date 1/73..

These build numbers are pretty close.. i wonder if australia got sequential batch numbers for the first run of GT's? It certainly seems that australia picked up some of the first ones!! (i presume there had to be a number of development/test mules with the first build numbers)..

I also wonder how many 240k's Nissan made per month, and i also wonder when production started on the 240K (i am guessing it must have been 12/72 or 1/73 based on my number)

it would be certainly interesting if anyone else ever comes across a plated "GT" to record down the build number and date, and record it here!

Jim, nice article.. what date was the magazine from (and what magazine out of interest).. interesting they report it as a GL, show it as a GT (which may be simply due to the fact that the pictures may not be of australian origin), and sell it as a GT (although very briefly)

Edited October 22, 200816 yr by khughes

I believe September 1972 is when production started of the 240K.

Nissan states on their website: "The C110 Skyline became a great hit with the catchphrase "Ken & Mary" at its debut in September 1972."

The car in the article picture has GL badges on the front, and GL tail lights. Though the car in the background appears to have Datsun GT badges on the side quarter.

Geez, you have good eyes if you could make out the badges on teh car in the background.

I wonder if that debut included the coupes? if it did i would be surprised that they only made 280 coupes between 09/72 and 01/73 (or maybe the coupes started later?)

Coupes started first. Sedans weren't started untill later, or so I've been told,

I zoomed in. You cant read them, but the shape of the badge is the GT shape (like a shield). GL badges were square-ish. And by counting the white blobs across the back,there are 6 = DATSUN. There would have to be 7 for SKYLINE.

Kent, 2/73 is correct as is build number 302.

Sedans seem to all be from late-ish '73 onwards.

The taillights aren't unique to the GL, all cars coming into Australia had them including the early GT's.

It's all to do with our ADR's and the required angles at which the taillights and brake lights must be visible.

Now that I've spent some time with the Skyline or JDM market lights, I can confirm that they are in fact illegal for road use in the C110 in Australia (and of course I wouldn't be so naughty as to use the ones I've installed in our car).

The side badge is likely to be either a GT or GL.

The main badge should be Datsun not Skyline and there just isn't enough difference in either shape or size of the GT badge and the earliest GL badge to be detectable on such a poor image.

The rear panel name plate is DATSUN on all cars marketed in Australia including the early GT batch. The SKYLINE name wasn't used on the C110.

Oh, and I can find no evidence that production started in September '72. The car was introduced at the motor show and wowed the crowds but that doesn't mean that anything more than a hand built show mule had happened.

Don't forget that quite a few of the earliest production cars were also destroyed in crash testing, road testing etc to satisfy the various standards authorities throughtout the planned markets.

ADR's alone would have used up at least 5 cars!

In recording any cars the only way to do it is photographs of the ADR plate.

The description imprinted in that plate is the only proof that any given car was actually sold as a GT by Nissan (Australia) Pty Ltd (unless someone really lucks out and gets the original receipts for a car describing it as a GT).

Edited October 24, 200816 yr by aarc240