Does anyone have these for sale, or know where to find ?

[Tirnipgreen]

I have a 3/73 240z and the only "option" listed as additional charge was the console armrest....and it has the stone guard under the engine.

Edited October 9, 2019 by Tirnipgreen

[bartsscooterservice]

2 hours ago, HS30-H said:

With respect, I think the answer - for your 1971 production HLS30U model - was clearly given by Kats further up the thread. The highest probability is that your car did NOT come with one as-delivered from the factory, but could accommodate the fitting of one if that's what you want to do.

Okay... well then i'll leave it off.

[kats]

14 hours ago, HS30-H said:

If you look further at your car you will see other details that were added because the parts/assemblies were common with those used on other variants and other market models. For example, your radiator support panel has holes and captive nuts to accommodate the fitting of an oil cooler, radiator overflow reservoir tank and air filter box/ducting. Your front differential crossmember has double cutouts and double captive nuts to allow the mounting of a twin pipe exhaust system. There are many details like these on our cars.

The holes for the splash pan mounting screws were added to the relevant structural parts of the monocoque when they were made and those components were shared across other variants/markets, so their presence does not necessarily indicate that the car was originally fitted with a splash pan. More that the structure was designed and manufactured with the ability to accommodate one.

I would like to show the examples of what Alan is describing. These goodies are easy installation . And everyone can install the fog lamps because the wires are already there . 

Look at the underneath of the radio , our cars all have a big rubber plug for the drain hole of the factory installed air conditioning system. No matter where cars were designated their destinations. Even Z432 which had never been applied air conditioning from the factory has the plug, 

it is interesting to see. 

Kats

[bartsscooterservice]

Well it would make sense the factory gave al S30 bodies these options for the factory " add ons/options ". Because adding them later would be madness offcourse. I think we see the same happening today.

I just find it interesting that it seems many s30's seem to have the splash pan and many also don't have it.. Maybe somebody working for Nissan at the time can give the answer why that was done ?

[HS30-H]

3 hours ago, bartsscooterservice said:

Well it would make sense the factory gave al S30 bodies these options for the factory " add ons/options ". Because adding them later would be madness offcourse. I think we see the same happening today.

Except that we are constantly told that these cars were "...made for the USA", "...designed for the USA", "...would not exist if it were not for the USA" etc etc.

The truth is that several different variants and pretty much a world market were accommodated in the concept, design, styling, engineering and production of the S30-series Z range.

3 hours ago, bartsscooterservice said:

I just find it interesting that it seems many s30's seem to have the splash pan and many also don't have it.. Maybe somebody working for Nissan at the time can give the answer why that was done ?

All I can say is, don't hold your breath...! So many people were involved in the process, and so many decisions were taken, that we probably should not expect every question to have one, clear, answer.

For me, the questions are part of the fun.

[gundee]

My February 72 built 240Z has one. I purchased my car used from a Datsun dealer. It was a trade in from the original owner.

I doubt the dealer or the original owner added it. I would say it came from the factory like that.

[HS30-H]

21 minutes ago, gundee said:

My February 72 built 240Z has one. I purchased my car used from a Datsun dealer. It was a trade in from the original owner.

I doubt the dealer or the original owner added it. I would say it came from the factory like that.

Would you happen to know what part of the USA it was originally sold in? Could it have been considered 'wet/snowy' for a significant part of the year?

[bartsscooterservice]

21 hours ago, HS30-H said:

Except that we are constantly told that these cars were "...made for the USA", "...designed for the USA", "...would not exist if it were not for the USA" etc etc.

The truth is that several different variants and pretty much a world market were accommodated in the concept, design, styling, engineering and production of the S30-series Z range.

 

I agree. Are people saying that ? I see it more like the USA was the biggest " market " for the 240Z..

[240260280]

Follow the money.  Corporations go after markets and when successfully in a market region, continue to develop and refine new products for that market to maintain position or expand it.

From 1964 to 1965, Nissan's sales of sports cars to USA doubled from ~2,000 to ~4000, for domestic market it dropped from ~1,800 to ~900.

For making a decision to build a new sports car in 1965, which market would give less risk and have more growth potential? It is clear it was for the USA.

Whether the goals of a few individuals in the corporation may have been initially  leaning towards a local product, it is clear what the corporation was seeing and where it was going, as also stated by many more individuals in the corporation.

The numbers speak for themselves.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 11, 2019 by 240260280

[HS30-H]

25 minutes ago, 240260280 said:

For making a decision to build a new sports car in 1965, which market would give less risk and have more growth potential? It is clear it was for the USA.

 

So what does "it was for the USA" actually mean?

Looking at the cars themselves - quite apart from any anecdotal evidence - it is clear that this was a series of multiple variants intended to be sold into several different markets. Take another peep up-thread at the photo of the factory aircon system which Kats posted. Was that "for the USA"?

Targeting the largest single market for bulk sales was not exactly rocket science, was it? VW, MG, Triumph, Jaguar, Austin-Healey, Fiat, MB, Porsche and even Ferrari did the same. How many times do we hear the "made for the USA" strap line attached to their products? Almost never, of course. Largely because "we made this for YOU" wasn't part of their sales patter.

38 minutes ago, 240260280 said:

The numbers speak for themselves.

The numbers are - by definition - after the fact. I don't see that they 'prove' anything much about concept, styling and engineering? They may (may...) illustrate economic achievement (there's a possibility that the dealers in the USA made as much - if not more - out of each car sold than Nissan themselves did) but would be subject to all sorts of Force Majeure and it is clear in retrospect that the 1965-ish through 1978-ish period was blessed as something of a golden age when a lot of holes in the cheese lined up. Katayama's bucket anecdote sums it up neatly but, in contrast, by the 1980s you had changing economics, anti-Japanese sentiment growing and the UAW saying "If you sell in America, build in America". 

If sales figures proved "made for" then why don't people say "made for" about all those Jaguars and Porsches, let alone the hundreds of thousands of little Datsun pickup trucks the USA consumed? I'm not even going to touch the Canada angle.

I'm always reading about the success of this "made for the USA" idea with regard to the '240Z' (yes, it usually paints '240Z' as "the first" or "the original", ignoring the other contemporary variants in the series and oblivious to the idea that '240Z' might mean more than one thing...) so when and how was this applied to other models? 

'Dumbed down, softened up, piled high and sold cheap'. How's about that for a slogan?   

[HS30-H]

2 hours ago, bartsscooterservice said:

I agree. Are people saying that ? I see it more like the USA was the biggest " market " for the 240Z..

You didn't have to wait very long, did you? ?

 

[240260280]

Initially, when it was just a few individuals drawing or designing it, the direction to market was not clearly defined, but when the corporation made its decision to run with it and replace the roadster, the designs were altered to accommodate the USA market. This is all well documented.

Sure, Nissan made variants of the core product  for different markets and had inputs from different parts of the company to make further changes, but the main product was developed from 1966 to 1969 for the USA market and replacing the roadster in its product line.