Z's on BAT and other places collection

[bluez]

19 hours ago, Racer X said:

The market is all over the place.

This one failed to sell in 2015 at $19,750, but sold a couple days ago for $73,240.

 

What a difference seven years makes.

 

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1972-datsun-240z-264/

Crazy price, think I’d rather have the lower vin, for a lot less.

[Zed Head]

Here's an interesting one, ending today.  Probably going to be RNM, based on the seller's comments.  A PO "rebadged" and retitled it with tags that don't match the VIN.  Then it got retitled with a brand new AZ VIN.

Just sold for $19,600.  The seller said he had more in it for restoration costs.

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/datsun-240z/

[Racer X]

1 hour ago, Zed Head said:

Here's an interesting one, ending today.  Probably going to be RNM, based on the seller's comments.  A PO "rebadged" and retitled it with tags that don't match the VIN.  Then it got retitled with a brand new AZ VIN.

Just sold for $19,600.  The seller said he had more in it for restoration costs.

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/datsun-240z/

And the VIN stamped on the firewall isn’t consistent with a series 1 chassis.

[bluez]

Quite the mish mash of parts, firewall shows vin 14160, dash had 3137, now AZ I’d number, and a L26 engine. 

[zspert]

Did someone say V-3 kit - final installment

 

So, for the next two plus years we tried very hard, at least I did, to make those 73, 74 & 74.5 Z cars run properly. I paid careful attention to each and every service bulletin ignoring those that didn't make sense and trying those that I thought had a shot. I found that as time passed less and less of the affected cars ended up at the dealer. Where did they go?

Fast forward to my post dealer days. I was getting a fair number of mostly second owners who weren't aware of the faulty induction system but knew something just wasn't right and wanted very dearly to make the damn thing run properly.  Of course the fix was to backdate the induction system, the entire system. Everything from the cylinder head out. This operation turned the undriveable into pleasurable.  Most of these second owner cars had low mileage, often less than 15k.  It seems that most of these cars were parked by the original owners after their patience ran out. In about the year 2000 I did the backdate to a 73 with only 8K miles.

Uemura-san's book drew a detailed picture of the extensive real-world testing that was done before the 240 was introduced to the US market. It's clear to me that Nissan did ZERO real world testing before introducing the 73 240 to US market. What a colossal foul-up! 

Interesting postscript - 10-15% of the cars in these model years, according to the original owners, ran just fine! In my view these chaps weren't being completely honest or they only used their Zs in the cooler months.     

Some time in the future I'll go into the other 74 & 74.5 big problem - loose crankshaft pulley bolts, oh yea!    Cheers

[bluez]

Reminds me of my first Z, a 260 that I bought in 1978, it had about 20k miles. The owner said he rarely used it. I quickly found out why. During the summer months the car would die after about an hour of driving. Tried several fixes, replaced engine fuel pump with an electric one, wrapped fuel lines, even ran copper tubing for fuel in front of the radiator. No luck it would still stall.  Took car to Bob Sharp, mechanic told me the carbs were crap, and recommended getting the triple Solex carbs. Could have gotten them for $500. 

[Carl Beck]

On 2/3/2023 at 7:29 PM, Racer X said:

And the VIN stamped on the firewall isn’t consistent with a series 1 chassis.

The VIN stamped on the Firewall was HLS30 14160 - The first series of chassis serial numbers ran up at least HLS30 20533. The second series of chassis serial numbers (aka Series II) started at HLS30 21001.

[CanTechZ]

BaT owned '73 240Z on the block for charity. Lot number 100,000. Should be interesting.

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1973-datsun-240z-229/

 

Edited February 25, 2023 by CanTechZ

[siteunseen]

Damn, that looks familiar. @Diseazd

Except the tag.

 

[Diseazd]

Close…..still my favorite color @siteunseen.

 

 

Edited February 27, 2023 by Diseazd

[Racer X]

This just popped up on BAT.

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1985-nissan-300zx-27/

Built on a 1985 300ZX 2+2.

Who owns and drives something as gaudy as this?

 

 

 

[Mark Maras]

 To each his own, I guess. It reminds me of the Excalibur from the sixties.