Well, I wound up with another low VIN Z...

[Mike B]

I didn't want another Z car, I really didn't. I already have three and I'm looking to downsize to two, but some times you come across a deal too good to pass up. So here is my story....

A couple of weeks ago Carl contacted me and let me know that someone in my area had just bought HLS30-00210 from the original owner. The new owner didn't know anything about Z cars, but came across Carl's Zhome site and read about the 1969 production cars. Turns out he only lives a few miles from me, so he asked me to come over and tell him what he had.

The original owner had gotten into a fender bender (hood bender actually) in 1997. He was able to drive the car home, and it sat in his garage for the next 11 years. The guy I got it from saw it in the original owner's garage and bought it for a steal. He towed it back to his house and stored it in his carport for a couple of weeks before I saw it. The accident damage is limited to the hood, front bumper, headlight buckets, grill, slight ding in the lower valance, and the left headlight bucket mounting structure. Fortunately, the frame is fine and the radiator didn't get pushed back into the fan.

The only rust is a dime size spot on the lower driver's fender and a little rust through at the bottom edge of the driver's door. The car was always garaged and has just over 148,000 miles. It has almost all its original paint. The right headlight bucket is metal, so that must have been replaced in an earlier ding, but nothing else looks out of place, so he may have just cracked the original FRP one somehow. The car has alot of door and fender dings from people parking too close and the rear bumper is tweeked slightly in the center so he must have backed into something. It looks like just the center bumper section needs replacing and some minor damage to the rear valance. The exhaust has been replaced with aftermarket stuff. The car also has an original BRE spook front spoiler in pretty good shape. It has the all the original hubcaps and steel wheels in excellent condition (more on that in a minute). The original spare looks like has never been used.

The interior is in great shape, just a couple of splits in the drivers seat, and the choke cover on the console is broken, otherwise it just needs a good cleaning. The dash, door panels, vinyl, plastic interior panels, and passenger seat are perfect (the seats had sheepkin covers on them). The only early production items that are missing are the front rubber mats (if it actually came with them) and the plastic fuel door knob. It has all of the grey interior plastic in great shape, all clear glass (even the original windshield), red dot mirror, early seat belt hooks and plastic edge guards on both seats, early alternator, plastic inspection lid clips, chrome Z emblems, rubber mats (behind the seats and cargo area), and even the original carpet in very good shape (he used aftermarket front floor mats on top of the originals). It came with the original owner's manual (Jan 70 edition), radio manual, warranty booklet, and a can of original touch up paint. The original registration certificate shows the car was sold on May 11, 1970. It still has the original license plates on the car.

Anyway, I went over everything with the new owner. He said he planned to outsource a concours restoration for it sometime next year. I told him that would be expensive, but if you were going to restore a Z car, this would be an excellent candidate. I also told him I wasn't looking for another Z at this point, but if he ever changed his mind and wanted to sell it to let me know (thinking that would be a year or more down the road). Well after calling around and getting estimates to have the car fully restored to the level he wanted, he decided he would rather sell the car now at several times what he paid for it, rather than restore it and sell it later. He emailed me after about a week and told me what he wanted for it and asked if I knew anyone that would be interested. I told him I might be myself, so I went over and looked it over one more time (especially the front end). We worked out a deal for slightly less than he was asking and I had it towed over to my house yesterday.

I'll be following the "waking the sleeping beast" thread advice and slowly getting the car ready to be restarted in the spring. I spent a little time cleaning the interior and exterior up today and found a couple of cool things:

-the original signed "OK" inspection sticker was between the jute and the carpet under the passenger seat.

-the hood emblem is solid metal. I've seen other solid early emblems (quarter panel 240z emblems, and the rear deck Datsun emblem), but I don't think I've seen a solid hood emblem yet.

-the quarter panel emblems are also the solid chrome Z's. I'm still working on carefully removing the other emblems to see if they are solid or not.

-the hubcaps and steel wheels cleaned up great. Hard to believe they have been on the car the whole time, but that appears to be the case. All the hubcaps have a date code of Jan 23, 1970 (showa date 45.1.23). Three of the steel wheels and the spare have a date code of Sept or Oct 1969, but one has a date code of Jan 1970. Very interesting, since the car has a 11/69 production date on the door and it was sold in May 1970.

I'll let you know what else I find as I go through it and get it ready for a restart in a few months. Here are some pictures as I first found it (more to follow).

-Mike

[Mike B]

Here are some more pictures as I first found the car.

-Mike

[Mike B]

A few more pictures.

-Mike

[Friar-Tuck]

It would appear somebody must be livin' right.....

Tuck \o/

[Mike B]

Hubcaps before and after, solid metal hood emblem, and original OK inspection sticker.

-Mike

[geezer]

WOW!! Do you feel like some kind of treasure hunter or something? Get yourself one of those Indiana Jones hats and a whip, so you look the part.:classic: What a find! It must be like an adventure just looking it over, studying the details. Congrats on what I bet was the deal of the year, Christmas came early for you Mike!

[Zak's Z]

I looked on member Kat's website after looking at your pics, it seems (unless the color and camera flash is off) that you have some rare early parts like the gray heater control panel.

The pic from his website is here http://www.geocities.jp/datsunz240zsports/1969heaterpanel.jpg

Great find !!

Edited December 15, 2008 by Zak's Z

[ToXIc]

wow you suck!!!!

great find.... wait forget "great".... Awesome !!!! find...

Sell me the car!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Edited December 15, 2008 by ToXIc

[kats]

Congratulations Mike:classic:

What a great find is, a solid metal hood emblem.You found it , we learned.

O.K. sticker, I see the name Mr.T. Inoue , would he even have imagined almost after 40 years people talking about this car and still exist? Wonderful:classic:

We have to think again about month & year of manufacture of HLS30 for the U.S. and Canada.

This wheel and cap tell us a lot.

Yes we know it is not 100% accurate. We even do not know when the tag attached on the car.

We want to know details, we want to know the definition of "month" of the car which should be attached.

I tend to think the tag would have been attached without careful procedure or attached very after car left from the factory, like Alan told us before.

Can we trust the plate on the body panel above driver's door striker?

Especially for an early car, Nissan held some good volume of HLS30s for the U.S. and Canada at port of Yokohama due to shimmy and vibration problem. Production was kicked off on Oct 1969, but many early cars were fixed (replaced) some parts before shipping for North America.

I think the delivery was late not only by boat, also held at Yokohama until early(March?) 1970.

kats

[Richard Oben]

Congrats on the new addition, really cool stuff, cheers Richard.

[HS30-H]

What a lovely honest car. Love it!

Congrats.

[240znz]

You see...there is a Santa after all.

Wonder what happened to the dip stick?

What is the decal on the firewall, close to the heater hoses?