Maybe the Goertz myths will slowly die...

[SteveJ]

Jalopnik is starting to get my respect...

Scroll down to the third paragraph.

[cygnusx1]

Pardon my ignorance, but as an uneducated auto historian, there are apparently many similarities, and design cues shared between the 2000GT and the S30. What's the connection? Seems way more than a coincidence to my untrained eye. I do know that if Goertz could post here, he would say it was because he did both cars, but I do know that much is not true.

Edited March 30, 2011 by cygnusx1

[SteveJ]

I like what Carl Beck wrote here and here.

[HS30-H]

.....there are apparently many similarities, and design cues shared between the 2000GT and the S30. What's the connection? Seems way more than a coincidence to my untrained eye.

What are the similarities and design cues that you see? I don't really see them, especially when you see the cars in the metal.

We've touched on the concept of a design 'zeitgeist' here before, and both the MF10 and S30-series Z are *similar* to any number of cars designed in the 1960s. We draw connecting lines through some of these designs because we see other - circumstantial - evidence that links them, but the truth is somewhat more subjective.

Scroll through the comments on that Jalopnik article and you start to see what kind of problems Japanese design and engineering comes up against. One of the very first fingers to point mentions the word "copy", and in this case it is the chassis and suspension design / layout. So, outside Japan you take 'reference', get 'influenced' and 'inspired', but if you are Japanese you just "copy". It's not really very far removed from the wartime propaganda that told us these people were half blind midgets who flew warplanes made from bamboo sticks and rice paper.....

[HS30-H]

I like what Carl Beck wrote here and here.

It's very easy to pick both those articles to pieces. The first one is particularly bad, the second is a little better but still has some foot-in-mouth moments.

Like the rest of zhome.com, they are not open to peer critique in-situ. The pages are there, as though written in stone, and are used as reference by other writers who repeat them - and thereby reinforce them. A forum-based discussion in far more enlightening, and much heathier.

[boyblunda]

Two recent publications from fairly well known Australian magazine writers and historians? continue to perpetuate the Goertz myth down under.

The first is a book book published in 2009,The Nissan Z - A Forty Year History Of The Z Sportscar IN Australia which has received some comment on the Auszcar site. Unfortunately, a lot of the authors' comment that I did enjoy was overshadowed by the bulk of comment on pages 12 - 15 that described Goertz involvement in both the S30 and the Toyota 2000GT.

The thing that possibly concerned me a little with this book was that while I do not have any trouble in seeing how the Goertz myth might be perpetuated given that other recent authors of books have made similar comments, I am, however, surprised to see that the book had a link to the 2009 Managing Editor of "Nissan Corporate Communications" and thought that there might have been some more written of the currently acknowledged design team responsible for the development of the S30.

The second was an article in Wheels magazine that had some similar comments and did quote from the letter (1982?) written by Nissan to Goertz.

So easy to print something that is not quite right. So very hard to correct and erase the same thing or even to have balanced comment to be considered. Even quoting a passage from a reference without an explanation of the full context in which it was written can "slant" a view which might be inferred from the words.

Edited March 30, 2011 by boyblunda

[tlorber]

What is that silver car in the background?

[sblake01]

Looks like a Triumph GT6

[rdefabri]

What are the similarities and design cues that you see? I don't really see them, especially when you see the cars in the metal.

+1 - really quite different IMHO.

[cygnusx1]

I am a designer. Not of cars, but of machinery, and consumer goods, so maybe my eye sees things in a different way. Here is my quick list.

1) Basic shape.

2) Part line for the doors.

3) Inspection lids.

4)Interior door panels.

5)Layout of interior door panel hardware.

6)Cowl design.

7)Drivetrain layout.

8) Seat upholstery design.

9) Forward opening hood.

10)Front turn signal indicators.

In my unbiased opinion as a designer, one of the cars designers, got a peek at the other design for a short while, and seems to have designed the other, out of a mental picture, a grainy spy photo, or sketches.

Again, this is all based on my intimate knowledge of the S30 design versus photos I have seen of the 2000GT. Call me crazy.

Edited March 30, 2011 by cygnusx1

[spitz17]

Beautiful car nonetheless...

[HS30-H]

I am a designer. Not of cars, but of machinery, and consumer goods, so maybe my eye sees things in a different way. Here is my quick list.

1) Basic shape.

2) Part line for the doors.

3) Inspection lids.

4)Interior door panels.

5)Layout of interior door panel hardware.

6)Cowl design.

7)Drivetrain layout.

8) Seat upholstery design.

9) Forward opening hood.

10)Front turn signal indicators.

Aren't most of these simply similar answers to the same problems, those answers influenced by the design 'zeitgeist' of the period, and with similar reference points? Both heavily influenced by the work of the big Italian styling houses / carrozzeria.

No offence, but your "Basic shape", "Drivetrain layout" and "Forward opening hood" are a little too general to be taken seriously. They both had four wheels too.......

In my unbiased opinion as a designer, one of the cars designers, got a peek at the other design for a short while, and seems to have designed the other, out of a mental picture, a grainy spy photo, or sketches.

But why would they need to look at "the other design", or indeed any one other design, whilst designing ( actually styling ) their own project? There was no necessity. Unless you believe that they could not start from a blank sheet of paper.....?

Alan T