And this one, hr369? Thanks for the translations.

This is cold as in temperature is cold. phonetic sound Samui.

Thank you for the input on my Z's Kanji...

 

That one reads 'Sam', as would be used in the word 'Samui' ('cold') or 'Samusa' ('chill'/'coldness') if it had an extra Hiragana character next to it.

 

But it doesn't. It's just 'Sam...' on its own, so it does not make complete sense.

Of course it doesn't make sense...typical of my whole restoration!

This is cold as in temperature is cold. phonetic sound Samui.

 

Again, you're going further than what's actually there. The single character shown is not a complete word on its own.

 

What's written is 'Sam' (pronounced phonetically with an inflection as though it had a letter 'u' on the end) and that doesn't say (or mean) 'cold' on its own. It's similar to saying that 'col' says 'cold'.

 

I think we should be very circumspect about assigning definite meanings to these scribblings, and that includes resisting the temptation to guess complete words when there are parts missing.  

Here's one more to add to the history:

If these are marks from inspectors, wouldn't we see the same symbols repeating? Some have such style that they seem like marks of pride. That said, some are saying that mine says "dormitory", so who knows?

This is in my Z, built in April of 1971 in Yokohama. I was born in April of '71 in Yokohama, which is part of the reason I ended up buying it. We met 46 years later in Massachusetts.

18 hours ago, ByStickel said:

Here's one more to add to the history:

If these are marks from inspectors, wouldn't we see the same symbols repeating? Some have such style that they seem like marks of pride. That said, some are saying that mine says "dormitory", so who knows?

This is in my Z, built in April of 1971 in Yokohama. I was born in April of '71 in Yokohama, which is part of the reason I ended up buying it. We met 46 years later in Massachusetts.

As pointed out on FB, translating a single Kanji like this is to somewhat miss the point. It reads as 'Ryo', which does translate as 'Dormitory'/'Dorm' in English, but is also a male given name in Japanese (on FB I cited Japanese pro golfer Ishikawa Ryo as an example) so it could very easily have been written by somebody called Ryo or for somebody called Ryo.

@Dr. 240Z

Couple of recent examples I spotted here in the UK, on original UK market HS30U 'Datsun 240Z' dashes:

'ENG' of course = England.

8 hours ago, 240260280 said:

@Dr. 240Z

I think you received the dash intended for my car ?.

This is from my 12/70 build car:

1 hour ago, jwtaylor said:

This is from my 12/70 build car:

'Tokyo'

Looks to have been written fast and loose...

'Tokyo'
Looks to have been written fast and loose...

There is a certain ‘need for speed’ on the assembly line.

So you're thinking that maybe they were working furiously when they wrote it.