CDM

The Macau Zcar in the picture above was purchased a few Years back and I just shipped to the new owner in Australia and it just arrived there.

Please let me correct myself as I get confused with different paint jobs on old friends cars. So I just talked to Casey and this was actually Doug Barnholds Ex Bob Sharp IMSA car in Caseys paint scheme for just 2 races. Frank was indeed driving here. I do believe that Frank and Doug may have owned this car together and soon after this race the car was converted to the more square bodywork front and rear and was painted red& white and Frank was driving at Riverside and was hit broadside at high speed and the car was totalled. The car was painted as Caseys car due to him having the IMSA license to enter the event. The car was co driven by one of the owners of datsun Alley instead of Doug at this event. Sorry for the confusion. Les

Casey Mollett and Frank Honsowitz in Caseys Z car at Riverside if I recall correctly

You can get proper Toyota racing pads through the guys at Porterfield and I also sell a great pad through my shop at Classic Datsun feel free to call me if you wish at 7609406365 Les

For what its worth guys I saw this post and called randy to let him know in case one of his helpers may have dropped the ball but that is not the case. The order was recieved on the 12th and shipped out on the 14th just 2 days later. But I invited Randy to join this list and come on here and talk to you guys about any issues you may have or questions. Randy is a very standup guy and he is constantly trying to fill our needs and make correct new products and I know this because I have provided many samples that he has cut up to make molds and production models etc. I know that I too have had a hard time reaching him sometimes and I think he will address a fix for that when he gets on this list. I can tell you trying to help small groups with new products is a thankless job and not for the faint of heart or those easily offended as the constant complaints and comment would make most guys quit. I have always warned Randy to only make parts that I think he can sell enough of to re-coupe his investment but he has alway gone above and beyond to create parts that may be needed but not sell very many. So Hopefully Randy will chime in sometime soon so he can help set the record straight and take your constructive advice as to better serve this group. Les

I was just kidding as I do of course I recognize the Friselle Z as we just sent a new rear end up for that car. We will be racing the 1988 PLN smoothnose 300ZX Turbo car against the big boys in the GTP stuff.

Bugatti Veyron?

The labels were actually sewn on the same direction so you would be able to read 1 and 1 would be upside down due to the way they install.

Jerry I found 1 more set of very rusty retractables and both labels were pointing up and covered the fold where the belt is sewn back to itself to hold the latch end

Carl So far as I know Joel maintained ownership and was letting another shop restore the car and then I was told Joel would drive it again and eventually the shop would help with the car and so on. Also the car that was in the movie was actually not the IMSA car but a very early series 1 body that was raced only in regional races but in a photo I have it won every race it entered in like 1978 in C prod in San Fran area and if I find it there is a photo of the door which was saved with all the stickers on it.

Many of you have asked about the Car I got from Jerry Purcell and what my plans were for it well Here are some photos of it back in the day in New Mexico when it was a C-prod car and 1 photo as I received it from Jerry. I have to say that the work the guys did back then to make it an IMSA car was very high quality and thought out and I am planning to run the car almost as Jerry gave it to me with the same colors and everything but because they hand made all the parts out of metal all 4 fenders and rear spoiler and front valance/spoiler I will fix those parts and most likely make fiberglass replicas so I don't hurt the real original parts. As some of you know this car is serial number 000029 and I feel very honored that I can put it back out there as Jerry had it in the late 70s and early 80s. Hope to be able to start on it pretty soon!!! the center photo is from the Datsun tent at the runoffs in 1977 I think

Here are a couple shots from last year at Monterey with Adam and the BRE 510 and the Fitzy car very fun times. Should be at Laguna with the 510 in March and back at Sonoma with the 510 in april and May hopefully.

Yes that car is being restored to racing status and another IMSA Z that ran with him is out there as well with this car and could become available from what I have heard. Les

Jerry I really like the fact that you are doing some of the stuff that we go through on most of these jobs and the zinc plating is one of those thankless jobs that take a long time and many trips and ways of cleaning to get something usable. There have been multiple ways to try and get the zinc done right and I have to say I am envious of those who say well I just took it in all rusted and dirty and greasey and they gave it back to me all clean and perfect for almost nothing. Not here where I am and not anytime recently for sure. Your parts came out great looking and it sounds like you are getting to know what I go through to try and do this. All the best and great story. By the way be really careful with the super thin springs that make the retractors work when trying to fix the last couple sets your included they will keep snapping off as you try to coil them to tighten them up. Les

Going all the way back to the Z car program when I started reproducing paint code and radiator stickers Mike and I have tried to figure out whats correct. Mike having been a Nissan master mechanic and having been around the cars a lot more than myself was much more intune with what was correct so I got out of the sticker business and told him I would purchase his correct stickers. I have to say though we learned a lot trying to figure out the cars and what is correct because the japanese materials are very different from what is available here. This includes some of the vinyl used in the seats and door panels and plastics in the steering wheels and rear panels. I have to wonder if the decals under hood could have been on foil originally and the heat turned them to a flat color along the way but as I believe someone already said Chrome or gold foil is very hard to read and would not really make sense. I just checked 3 Hoods and they all have the smog decal and it is flat silver material. Please remember that some of us and maybe it is just me would hope to make the car as good as or better than it was when it was new and if there was crappy materials used I would prefer not to use inferior quality items even though the cars will be taken care of infinitely better now than they were in their earlier life. Les

Funny that you sent that picture as that is the new car we just got and I am heading up this morning to put in a new windshield and do oil changes on everything. Yes we did the resto on the roadster and it won the rolex trophy at Monterey the year we took it up there. Currently starting on the sister car to the roadster which was John Mortons car. I hope everyone has a great holiday season this year all things considered. Les

Here is a couple better pictures of that car from the Detroit race one of it on track and one of it up at Adams Shop we are starting restoration on the sister car first. By the way the photo in post 376 of the Posey car chasing the 914-6 the BMW 2002 in the foreground is the Nick Craw car and if you notice the #46 on the door his co-driver was John Morton and of course Nick went on to be president of SCCA. Les

That photo was the first taken by a professional photographer right after Shawn at Sharpsite motorsports redid the body and paint back to what it is supposed to look like. Shawn did an amazing job of getting the rear fenders back out to where they should be and the graphics came out amazing. I am hoping that I can get Adam to take it out for some racing although the big groups like Monterey won't allow it since it never raced back in the day. Shawn does some great work and he is branching out in the new York area to help vintage race guys be able to have competent help and track support as well. Well I am off to get another cool car for the collection will post photos when I return. Les

That last photo was a PR photo taken in 2001 when we tested the BRE car at Buttonwillow racetrack in central California and John Morton and I flew his plane up to the track and landed on the straightaway and we parked the plane along side the hotpit and we later posed the car next to the plane and his plane is White with red and blue stripes and I remember telling him it needed BRE stripes on the sides. Car was testing for the Monterey historics in 2001 where John was eventually forced to crash Vic Edelbrocks 1968 Smokey Yunick Camaro because he was blocking John every lap and one of the Alfa was fast approaching and John was not going to let him catch up. I will see if I can find some photos of this and some other cool cars we are building or have here at the shop. Les

We will hopefully have it broke in for Jerry before he goes on his little side trip. I was really hoping to have Jerry be able to attend one of the event while he was out visiting and he had told me that he hoped to be able to visit a few places he wanted to see while he out here on the left coast. It was really not worth trying to rush this close to the end of the project and we are finishing up another Z at the same time that is Lime yellow and I believe that couple may also go to the Datsun event in Williams AZ at the same time. It will be nice to see 2 great Zs back on the road and let me have a little time to breathe again. Les

Steve I took your flare directly to Herman as soon as I got it back from you and this has been his response from day one as I had told you he promised to fix the problem but he refuses to do so and he is very frustrated with me for me bitchin about it as you guys are with me because I cannot force him to fix it all I can do is report what I am told or take the steps that I have outlined which where I am going next no more #%$^&* around with this situation as he has done this to me times too numerous to mention. I am done with him. Even though we have limited sources for the things we do it is not worth the headache nor heartache this stuff creates. I am glad that you heard it all direct from the source. Les

Guys I will try to address this the best I can I have answered Steve to the best of my ability including my offer to refund his money but I don't think that would answer his dilema. From the e-mails you can tell that I am at the mercy of a shop run by a complete #@%$&* waste of time normally mine as I had noted a few weeks back in my description of trying to do the door panels project. I am normally on the road up to LA LA land at least 1 full day a week dropping off or picking products that shops refuse to ship. I have personally checked the status of the flare in question at least 3 times with stories about why it was not being addressed and I am as fed up as Steve in trying to resolve the issue. I have stated that I am trying to redo what I can afford as I can afford to make new molds for better quality and fit of our parts as I never know unless someone tells me so I always appreciate hearing back from someone with an issue so things can be improved. So I am going to tell you how all this comes about so you know the inside story and c an then better make your decisions in the future. The Japanese flares may have been in the US before but if they they were I don't think they had been available for a period of time. Many years ago I met an older japanese gentleman at the MSA show when I had my RHD fairladyZ and he offered to get me the ZG flares for my car from Japan and so I paid him to get them and when I got them I was able to get molds made after some of my friends decided they wanted some of them. The original quality was no where near perfect but was acceptable knowing that most fiberglass item need some degree of finishing. Several years later I started getting calls from some of the hired help at MSA who told me they planned to buy my flares and make their own copies and sell them. I felt this was kind of a @#$%&^ way to deal with me so I talked to the owner Greg with whom I am have a good business relationship with and he said they would not do that but instead they would purchase them through me. Well that was all good for several years and we helped each other out until the shop making the products started down the road of putting us off for weeks on end delaying delivery for me and MSA. Now remember during this time I had been creating Z car hoods and rear Japanese spoilers and the first carbon fiber hoods etc and at this time MSA was having their parts made somewhere else and they Hired a young guy who 1 day ventured into the shop I use to purchase a snowboard and he saw all the parts we made. He was able to go back and let MSA know and soon many of their older and not so good molds got moved to this shop and many of their parts got fixed and repaired so the quality was much better but know you have to realize I am going up to the shop for a while every 2 weeks and I start seeing dozens and dozens of parts being popped out for MSA and our stuff started to suffer at the mercy of the deeper pockets. Also please understand in this business if you own the molds or provide the parts to create the mold normally the product is yours and not sold to anyone else for example I do not walk into the shop and ask for any of the product MSA sells but of course the situation is not mutual in many cases my stuff was sold to anyone who walks in the door. So to get back to the recent issues with the flares we have had 2 complaints in all the years of selling them and one issue was that one flare seems to have splayed out and looked longer than the other front flare and it was just an issue of needing to be pinched in before mounting to make it span the same distance between bottom edges and in that case I went to the shop and pulled out my molds and all of the MSA molds including 1 set of molds no longer used so we could try to see a difference so since that problem we have had 1 flare coming from another mold so that it at least more closely matches the others. When Steves flare arrived I took it up and laid it out again with every mold in the shop and every mold had the same small area where the flare appears to be concave instead of convex and he saw the problem and promised to fix it and then he gave reason after reason why it was not done and today even before I saw this e-mail I had already called due to Steves E-mail from yesterday and he basically told me that it was not important and he would get to it whenever he felt like it and that he sells 12 sets a week to MSA and no one ever complains about them. So needless to say until I redo them myself on my own car with my own new shop and to my version of fit and quality I will no longer sell them at all and I will refund Steves money and I don't even want the flares back since I won't be able to get a refund for them since this shop is always broke. I have been slowly moving all my fiberglass production to a more local shop where I own the product and I am in charge of the quality and they are only 10 mins from my shop and eventually all my fiberglass will be consolidated to one location for the reasons listed above. I wish I could share the stories about alot of the product out there from the perspective of someone trying to make a quality product and how much I have done to make these things available and how everyone else benefits from my work and really how few complaints we do get but how 2-3 complaints completely overshadow the hundreds of people with no problems and this includes 3 headliners that have come unglued and how they were replaced and it sounds like there was little or no improvement even with our suggestions and complaints hoping to improve the product short of me showing up and holding guys glue gun and showing him how much glue is needed or has the factory had to replace the glue that works with some crappy none working glue the tree huggers love that does not even work for a short time I have very limited control over their production line or the quality of their products used to make our finished products. Believe me they really hate to hear from me as I usually lay into them for changing what works into something that I have to explain on a more regular basis. Am I buried with projects and work yes and yet I still try to follow up with every thing we can and since we created the interior parts with this big company for the Z car program these parts have alway been close to me for the quality issues because I started all this in 1996 and offered up everything we needed to do all this. So sorry for any problems and we have seeming addressed them to the end and the result is not acceptable to me so I will no longer offer these parts for sale until I can verify they are correct and fixed. Thank you Les

Guys since this has always been a problem to be able to re-wrap the damaged panels we started to reproduce new panels and the project has stalled out several times and I have recently gotten it back on track so we can have new panels. I will keep you al posted on the progress. Les

Vintage Sedan Racers Group eNews May 2012 HSR-West and the Riverside International Auto Museum Join Forces for a Major Vintage Weekend This years HSR-West Southern California Historic Sportscar Festival is bigger than ever and the Tribute to John Morton at the Riverside International Auto Museum Friday night of the same weekend will make for a "don't miss" weekend. It looks like there is going to be one of the largest turnouts of 2.5/B-Sedan cars in many years for this event so get your entry in as soon as possible. For more on what is happening at the Museum, Les Cannaday sent us the following information: To all you fans out there with Datsun or Nissan Race cars or just fans of racing in general I am very proud to be able to tell everyone finally about the Legends of Datsun/Nissan racing event hosted by the Riverside International Automotive Museum and put on with help of the Vintage Sedan Racers Group (VSRG). The Museum will be honoring John Morton for his incredible racing career. We have 2 nights at The Riverside museum on June 21-22 to spend the evening with a wide variety of people that raced, built or sold racing parts from the 60's through the early 2000's. The guest list includes famous teams and independent racers from all areas and all types of road racing. I cannot possibly list all the people but you can count on there being many of the BRE team and a bunch of the guys from Electramotive, NPTI and many of the privateers. We will have some panel discussions as well as some videos and a catered dinner on Friday evening with a bar. Adam Carolla will be there with a few of his historic Datsun Race cars. If this part of the event was not enough we also have 3 days of vintage racing tied in at the local California Speedway with the big summer event with HSR West racing and we will have a large B-sedan/Trans-Am race as well as an all Datsun race for the rest of the cars. We don't have all the details on the track event entry costs for spectators yet but we are trying to work out a way to lower the cost at the track. We will have limited seats for the Museum event. We are encouraging participants to bring items for the charity auction and hopefully something so we can create a permanent display of the rich history of Nissan at Riverside Raceway we will have a bunch of Datsun Race cars to enjoy and a very enjoyable weekend of events. John Morton will be driving a 510 at the track event on Sat and Sunday. Please go to www.LegendsofRiverside.com/Tribute to purchase tickets and follow the list of invitees as we post them. By the way the charities we are helping are the Boys Republic which is Chad McQueens efforts to help at risk youth and the Paralyzed Veterans of America San Diego chapter which has a motorsports program that one of our B-sedan racers Duane Norman is the head of their efforts. Thank you all and look forward to seeing many of you at the events. Les Cannaday

Yea I felt bad for a couple of minutes but the car was a good deal and the parts were better than the car and the car was a 1968 to boot. We actually took 2 510s from back there but these were not cars that anyone knew about anyway so we recently sent 2 very nice 510 race cars to new york for the LaBrun brothers to drive at the Glen this year and they were cars that really should be back there. One was a Bob Sharp look alike we made 5-6years ago and the other was the Rob Dyson original race car that Ken Mattice owned and restored and Dyson is from NY. So all's fair in racing again. Les