HS30-H

Hi Victor, Yes - its a good question. In fact, if you look at the dates then the L20 six ( at least in its initial guise ) was installed and on sale in the Cedric Special 6 well before the actual Nissan / Prince merger. As far as I have read and been told, the Nissan L-series engines took a lot of inspiration from the later Prince G-series engines, and the G7 in particular. It was the G7 that used some of the Mercedes-patented systems designs that were carried through into the Nissan L-series engines, I believe. I think this would imply that a fair amount of 'sharing' was going on even prior to the official handshakes of the Nissan / Prince merger. The Japanese automotive press have down the years repeated the Nissan-led PR stories about the big injection of talent, know-how and prestige brand image that they received when they merged ( absorbed ) PMC. Of course, all of this is true but I think we have to take the slightest pinch of salt with it. I think its reasonable to believe that Nissan used the PMC merger as something of a PR opportunity as well as a springboard into the domestic prestige market and PMC's competition heritage. Hence Nissan 'talked-up' the story a little to make the most of it. So, I think there was a lot going on behind the scenes between Prince and Nissan that we do not really know about, and does not get talked about all that much. Alan T.

This "adding two cylinders to the Bluebird engine" story seems to have originated from a non-Japanese perspective. The Nissan 6 and 4 cylinder L-series engines were apparently designed and developed around roughly the same time - with the L20 six being used in a production vehicle first. The L20 six ( in single carb form, as fitted to the 'Cedric Special 6" ) debuted in October 1965. The first of the L-series 4-cylinder engines ( the L13 and L16 of the Sunny and Bluebird ) debuted in August 1967. Alan T. ( Edit: Whoops - getting my Cedlics and Grorias mixed up...... now corrected :stupid: ).

lvymy240z, Don't jump the gun by turning up at the Zama Operations Centre expecting to get a personal viewing. There are a lot of things going on at Zama these days that involve the general public, but access to their car collection storage hangar is very strictly limited, and a casual 'drop-in' visit is not on the cards. If I were you I would write to Nissan ( try aiming for the top with a letter to the head office in Ginza ) and ask how you would go about asking........ As you already live in Japan I obviously don't need to tell you that protocol is going to be very important. Don't try to take any short cuts with that. The collection is supervised and 'curated' by a sub-contractor to Nissan, and you will have to go through the correct channels and get the right introductions before you are invited to one of the occasional open days they have. These are usually organised in collaboration with relevant car clubs, and the members that are allowed to visit are strictly supervised. Everybody who gets a look at this collection of Nissan and Datsun history is left under no illusions that they have been very lucky indeed. I was trying to arrange a personal visit for many years, and was lucky enough to be invited along on a special viewing with a Japanese club that I belong to. I made a trip to Japan from the UK expressly to join this group viewing. Good luck, Alan T.

You don't seem to be making any differentiation between photos posted in the Gallery, and photos posted as an aid or topic of discussion in a thread. I think in the second instance, the "Fair Use" part of copyright law is applicable. I don't think I have any copyrighted material in my Gallery ( even the Nissan event flyers and postcards are copyright-free ) and if I post anything in a thread that is copyrighted then you can rest assured that I do so with the intention of it being covered by what I understand as the terms of "Fair Use" for discussion. Or maybe you are just making a point about this "most vocal complainer" rather than about the subject itself? So, *only* the law of the United States of America is applicable to this site? In that case I'm not sure I understand just how national law applies to the Internet. As far as I am aware, this is a matter that is still open to interpretation and will be argued at length by the lawyer of your choice at extremely expensive rates. Probably without any definitive result. Since you seem to know what you are talking about, perhaps you can advise me on one particular case that I would like to seek opinion on? A member of this site has taken a picture from a UK-'based' website, and has put it in his Gallery at classiczcars.com. Does this case get judged under the USA's "freedom of the press", or the law of the United Kingdom - where it was taken from? The photo in question is now wearing a classiczcars.com watermark......... I realise that this site was 'built', is administered, and indeed is owned, in the USA - but where does that leave its 'members'? Not all of us reside in the USA. Is this site ( with all the intangible nature of the Internet taken into account) actually in the USA as far as its legal status is concerned? As far as I am aware, this is a matter that is still open to interpretation. Personally speaking - and I have said this many times before - I have NO problem with members or indeed non-members of this site downloading 'my' photos from the Gallery here and keeping them on their computer. When I post them in the Gallery I implicitly understand that they can do this if they want to. They can even send them to their friends, print them out and hang them on their wall, or use them as toilet paper for all I know. BUT - when they post them somewhere else that I can see on the net, and especially when they take off the classiczcar.com watermark and try to pass them off as their own ( or even try to evade the responsibility by saying "I don't know where this came from, but..." ) then I WILL make an effort to point out that what they are doing with my photo upsets me. What's wrong with that? Oh, I forgot - that's just "whining" isn't it? Alan T.

EMS is the Japanese side of the INTERNATIONAL DATAPOST service, an international link-up of national postal services that offers the fastest ( and most expensive! ) international Air postal delivery. You can send larger items by normal "Surface" mail ( it travels most of the way by sea ) - which obviously takes a long time, and can be risky with regard to damage and loss in my experience. How about trying "SAL" level postal service from the Japanese Post Office? "SAL" stands for "Surface, Air Lift" - which means that the journey is split between sea and air services. Its not as fast as EMS and not as slow as surface, its fairly safe, and is priced very reasonably. It also has a higher maximum size / weight limit than EMS. I've had very good success with both EMS and SAL service level post over the years.

Sorry guys, I guess I'm not totally up to speed with what you are referring to. Do please remember that I speak a 'foreign' language. This is no time to be cryptic. How about speaking plainly? I'm guessing that you both might be hinting at the images that are used as items of discussion on the threads, or to illustrate technical points and/or points of interest - in which case I think this previous comment was relevant:

You don't think that anybody participating in this thread is concerned about the interests of this site then? Where does the "revenge" and "profit" come into it?

panchovisa, Would you care to clarify? Alan T.

Excellent! I've just tested this out and I think it works really well. Thank you, Mike. Alan T.

That's a lovely site. Very nice indeed. But the cheeky sod has lifted some photos from my gallery. Check out the Z432 section. At least two of the photos were taken from this site, but he's chopped of the classiczcars.com watermark. :cheeky: Alan T.

Hi Andrew, The can I bought has the brand name "CONCEPT Tar & Glue Remover" from Concept Chemicals and Coatings Ltd: Concept Chemicals You should be able to get hold of it either direct from them or from a more local supplier. Cheers, Alan T.

Hi Mike, That's great new info. Thanks for posting it. Poor Herrmann getting a smack around the head made me chuckle. I bet he *knew* he was in Australia after that ....... Mind you, he was no slouch as a driver. His 'excuse' of fuel problems may well have been true; that car was running on the new Nissan electronically controlled injection system, which was still suffering from niggles and glitches under rally conditions. This could well have been an intermittent problem, making Herrmann look bad when Bonhomme took the car out with no reported problems. He probably never even knew Leighton was behind him. Most of his rear view mirror would have been filled with a pair of spare wheels and the intercom box! Do you have a date for the event? How long before the Southern Cross was it? I thought it took place after the Southern Cross, not before ( ? ). Cheers, Alan T. Edit: Ah, I see what you mean - a fact-finder before the '73 Southern Cross, rather than before the '72 Southern Cross. I think it would be more likely that - with the car available after the '72 'Cross, Datsun Australia Pty willing ( and happy for publicity / eager to assist in servicing duties and logistics ) and Nissan's competition dept. happy to loan the car - that it was done as a one-off. This kind of thing happened quite often in other countries. Mehta and Fall in particular were often loaned cars to do smaller events with. That's how a lot of them got written off :stupid:

Carl, I already have - and continue to - chase up people or organisations that use images of mine without my permission. In fact, I'm currently waiting for a reply from a member of this site who I contacted just before this thread started. Frankly, I don't really expect an answer or a favourable result - but that will not stop me from making the point to him. You seem to be focusing mainly on complaining about the 'legalese' part of this thread, but this is only one aspect of the subject. Nevertheless, the legal issues are an important factor when it comes to confronting people who think they can walk off with something that belongs - at least morally - to this site. In my opinion, if you let it go then it can be the start of a slipperly slope. Pretty soon the identities of members and the identity of the site itself could be at risk. You might think that an exaggeration at this point in time, but - presumably - you close your windows and lock your front door when you leave your home just like I do. We ought to be vigilant here too. In the case of this thread, the misunderstanding / dispute was between two sensible and polite members of the club, and is now resolved. It is a case that we can all learn from and point to as reference in the future. Other cases are not so simple - like when somebody takes photos from here and posts them on another site as their own - and I wish they were as easy to solve. Discussing this issue is - I think - relevant to this site and our participation / membership of it. If that is not "on topic" then I don't know what is. I think it was reassuring to see Mike's statement regarding the site copyright, and this allows people like myself - who are chasing up people behind the scenes - to act with the knowledge that taking these images - and anything else - from the site is frowned on by the management / owner of the site, and by ( many / some of? ) the members of the site. Alan T.

Hi Andrew, ARMOR ALL! Seriously though, I had similarly old and ( seemingly ) dry vinyl on my current project car interior. The reverse side was covered in much too much old glue, so I set to with a naptha-based ( at least it smells like naptha ) Tar & Glue remover recommended by my local auto paint supplies shop.... Strangely, I found that this had the effect of making the vinyl come up like new on both sides. It became much more supple, much more black than it was before, and the stuff took off most of the glue too. I was surprised. Obviously this is a cleaner, so you would expect it to take more out of the vinyl than to put anything 'back in', but it does seem fairly oily and my paint supply guy says that it will not hurt. The vinyl still looks great, even several months after cleaning, and has not dried up again.

Moyest, I don't know about anybody else, but I'm serious. Why should I just shrug and let people misappropriate images I made and posted to this site? The whole point of posting them to this site is so that they can be enjoyed by other like-minded people ( both members and visitors to this site ), but that does not mean that people should think its a free-for-all for them to take and use what they want and how they want. I know that all is now sweetness and light between yourself and RB30-ZED, but I still don't understand why you copied photos from his gallery and put them in your own. Surely this is a great recipe for confusion and misunderstanding, let alone anything else? Exactly the same thing happened to me, and the member that re-posted the photos didn't seem to get the irony of the situation. All the legal talk is - of course - academic if nobody wants to follow it through. However, I think there is the matter of politeness and common sense to take into account too. Surely anybody who downloads photos from websites realises that there will likely be issues with 're-publishing' them? Whenever I see any of my own photos being used without permission, I usually - at the very least - try to make the point to the person or site involved. Sometimes it has the desired effect and sometimes it does not, but I don't see why I would be best advised ( as some people seem to be saying ) to sit back and treat it as inevitable, and quit "whining"........ And moyest, I really don't understand your final comment. What is "evil" about discussing an issue like this? I don't get it. As far as I can see, protecting the site and its contents is a subject worth discussion( yes - even from its own members, as there are members here who have taken images of mine and are still using them on their own private websites ). If you did not get the required answers to questions you posted in the "HELP" or "ENGINE" sections, then maybe you would like to post them again or just ask them in a different way on the same thread? I don't see this as an issue of 'good' or 'evil'. I think the members of this site are very helpful and will offer advice or data if they think it is relevant and / or of possible help. Alan T.

You don't seem to have noticed ( or remembered ) that you were giving flack to people for discussing the subject in the first place. Didn't you say this was "off topic"?

Good. Thanks for clarifying that. Cheers, Alan T.

Mike, Any chance of getting your opinion on the subject of the site copyright on the pictures in the classiczcars.com Gallery? Your opinion - as owner of this site - on pictures being lifted from here, and posted on other sites, is of particular interest to me. Thanks, Alan T.

So, if you were aiming the comment at anybody / everybody participating in the thread - then I should not take offence? Run that by me again........ In the light of all the "STOP WHINING" comments ( not to mention the dedicated avatars and "knock it off or else" PM's ) recently, I find it hard not to take offence. The people making these comments ( notice the non-specific ) don't seem to be aware of the irony of they themselves being whiners who are whining about whiners whining. Carl, do me a favour and stop whining about people bringing up issues that ( I think ) need a little discussion. Go back to the first post on this thread and try to imagine the long-term benefit to this site of bringing a subject like this to attention. If nobody cares about the subject then it will die a natural death. If it gets a few replies ( on topic - its you that's taking it OFF topic ) then that shows the heart of the site is still beating. Oh yeah, I forgot - that's just "In My Humble Opinion"..... You will allow me my opinion, won't you? Please? Pretty please?

Yes Carl, I'm just WHINING. I don't know why I bother posting on this site anymore.

"Fair Use" / "Fair Dealing" for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review ( as permitted under the terms of most Copyright law ) is usually seen as covering this type of use. It is a grey area, all the same. Where we draw the line is a little hard to say, but keeping it within the realms of politeness and respect is probably the best foot to start off on. "Hello, my name is Michael, and I have a downloading confession to make...." I think the intentions of your work are clear ( 'pro bono' = for the common good ) and I can't imagine anyone taking exception to it. But if they do, and the image you used is theirs, then they would be 'in the right'. That's the way I would see it anyway. It's the "up yours" attitude of some people that rubs me up the wrong way. I asked one guy on another site last year to stop using my photos and pretending they were his, and he told me where to get off. He didn't see it from my point of view at all. There's a lot of it about........ :dead: Alan T.

That's easy. The photos are yours and you can post them where you like. That's easy too. As long as you are using them for your own reference / enjoyment, then no harm is being seen to be done. You can save what you like to your computer. Like I said, its the next step ( "publishing" them ) that can be a problem. Edit: Exactly, Mr Camouflage! :classic:

That's fine. I accept that this is inevitable, and if somebody wants to download photos and keep them then there is little harm as far as I am concerned. Its the next step that is the problem..... Its like buying a book with photos in it. You can use them for your own enjoyment / reference / study etc - but the moment you reproduce them and display them somewhere else, you are technically infringing copyright. Alan T.

Gav, Might I suggest that if this situation arises, you do what Tod Kaneko thinks is best with regard to his photo, and not what you think is best.......... Alan T.