hls30.com said:

......not all black Zs were black pearls......

Carl will disagree with you on that one. From a discussion about a year ago:

  Carl Beck said:

You are correct. The Black Pearl Edition 280Z - was a limited edition of units painted with the Black Pearl Metallic Paint and for which there was a $90.00 charge on the Window Sticker. The SAP was an extra cost option, over and above the cost of buying the Black Pearl. The SAP option was only available on the Black Pearl edition. Nonetheless one could have purchased a Black Pearl without the SAP.... or with it.

FWIW,

Carl B

Stephen,

I stand corrected. All black '78 Zs were referred to as Black Pearls-I thought only the ones with the SAP were actually Black Pearls.

Along those lines, I should have written "All black Zs did not come with the Black Pearl Special Appearance Package."

Good catch!

What this would mean is the car in question-assuming original paint could be a Plack Pearl with the Special Appearance Package or close, put on later.

Edited May 15, 201014 yr by hls30.com

  hls30.com said:

Stephen,

I stand corrected. All black '78 Zs were referred to as Black Pearls-I thought only the ones with the SAP were actually Black Pearls.

Along those lines, I should have written "All black Zs did not come with the Black Pearl Special Appearance Package."

Good catch!

What this would mean is the car in question-assuming original paint could be a Plack Pearl with the Special Appearance Package or close, put on later.

That means there were black pearl painted Z available if you ordered them so?

If so, not all the 280Zs in black pearl color were the Black Pearl Edition then....

Yes. They could be ordered without the SAP. It would still be a Black Pearl Edition.

  Carl Beck said:

Nonetheless one could have purchased a Black Pearl without the SAP.... or with it.

The Black Pearl debate is the same question as the 77 ZAAP Z cars with and without SAP.

I don't think there's a debate on either car. The same reasoning would hold true for the ZZZap. There were even ads from Nissan that showed the car w/o the SAP and still called it ZZZap. The picture on the Midway arcade game shows a ZZZap w/o the SAP and yet the name of the game is ZZZap. I'm sure that Midway had to get some type of permission from Nissan to do that. We've been over it all before. It's only a debate if you want it to be: http://zhome.com/zcarfilesJPEG/ZZZapAd.jpg

http://jdm-car-parts.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/29165001.jpg