HS30-H

Hi Dylan, Good to see the photos. Engine bay looks like it has not been messed with - which is nice. The bumpers *might* have been replaced if they do have the rubber trim. Either that or the original buyer went for the extra-cost Option of having them supplied on the car new. I still think its more likely to be an S30-S if it has the 4-speed. Any idea of the original Factory colour? Thanks for your PM. I'll contact you directly to send further info. I hope that I can help you with it. Cheers! Alan T.

Here are some more pics of Fog Lamp switches. These are being used to switch the huge Koito Spot Lamps on Works 240Z rally cars. The Koito spot lamps on the Works rally cars were actually Koito's aircraft landing lights ( normally situated inside a nacelle on the leading edge of the wing? ) I am told. Part numbers for the Fog Lamp Switches were: 25370-E4100 COMB-SWITCH FOG LAMP ( OPT ) - up to 08-71 superseded by: 25370-E8700 COMB-SWITCH FOG LAMP ( OPT ) - from 09-71. Alan T.

Yes Enrique, That is indeed the panel in my 1972 240ZG. However, I think I originally posted it when we were discussing the Japanese-market Parking Lamp system? The panel in my car is custom - so should NOT be discussed as an example of OEM. Some time in the dark and distant past, the previous Japanese owner had all sorts of accessories on the car and needed a few extra switches. He seems to have decided to get another Parking Lamp switch and site it in the Choke light position right next to the original Parking Lamp switches. Didn't we go through all this on the original thread? I can't remember. Anyway, don't lets get suckered into a conversation about my panel - as its modified, and is not a good example of OEM placements for Fog Lamp switches ( only Parking Light switches ). I'm attaching a pic of the underside of the panel just to tie that up. You can see that the second ( custom fitted ) Parking Light switch is unused at present. Actually, you can see why the previous owner thought it would be a handy and neat way of incorporating a couple of extra switches on the panel. It screws on very nicely. I'm also attaching a pic of the panel from my mid-1970 Fairlady Z-L, so you can see the placement of the Parking Lamp switches and HRW switch on the earlier version of the Home market cars.

You mean about the photo Guus posted? That's the 1972 Southern Cross. Rauno Aaltonen and Steve Halloran in "TKS 22 SA 8075". The great Hannu Mikkola is leaning on the door chatting to Aaltonen. They actually won the rally on the road, but were demoted to 2nd for a rule infringement over advertising stickers on the car. Seems the organisers thought they had too many stickers, or they were too big. Oh for the good old days! Trick car, that one. It was running the ECGI injected engine. Pretty powerful. That car also did ( at least ) one other rally in Australia; the 1972 "Dulux International" - which I don't know too much about, do you? It was crewed by Edgar Herrmann and Roger Bonhomme ( a good combination of a fast and experienced Works driver and an experienced navigator with good local knowledge ). Cheers, Alan T.

Roger, Do you think that magazine article's quoted VIN number might have been a typo? I think it has too many digits for a Fairlady Z or Z-L of that age. I think it should read either "S30-01716" or "S30-01712" ( as Dylan said it was ) as they only had 5 numbers in the serial at that point. Likelihood of a sister car with a very close VIN number here in the UK would be fairly unlikely considering that they were not officially imported. Cheers, Alan T.

Just as a little taster, and a bit of encouragement ( you can show it to the 'unbelievers' who don't know what the car is ) here's a scan of one of the earliest Japanese market sales brochures. That's 'your' car ( if its an S30-S 'Fairlady Z' model ) on the far left. Enjoy! Cheers, Alan T.

Great, that's relatively close then. Drop me a PM with your direct e-mail address and I'll put together some pics / data to send to you for your reference. Cheers, Alan T.

Hi Dylan, Glad we have managed to help and reassure you so far. Don't worry about Nissan UK. It seems that a large proportion of their 'suits' don't now one end of Nissan's history from their elbow. I had an exec from Nissan UK standing in front of my genuine Fairlady 240ZG at a car show once, and he was telling me that 'no such model existed'. Oh dear........ Pics will be great. Posting them here as attachments to your posts is pretty simple as long as they are not too big. You have mentioned one detail that would appear to show that its likely to be a Fairlady Z ( S30-S ) model rather than the better-equipped Z-L ( S30 ). The Clue is the fact that it has the four-speed transmission. This was standard equipment on the S30-S, and a very very rarely chosen option on the Z-L, so its more likely to be the 'basic' S30-S. That in itself makes it even rarer than the Z-L. I know of at least four other Z-L models in the UK, but possibly only one S30-S ( which is non-original now anyway ). Its rare anywhere in the world. The most common way that these Japanese home-market models filtered into the UK was in the personal posession of US armed forces personnel. Very often they were stationed in Japan and bought their cars new or used whilst there. Many of these people were then stationed in the UK, and brought their cars with them ( particularly USAF personnel ). It made sense to bring an RHD car to another RHD oriented country, and I'm told that the freight was 'gratis' - as part of their personal effects. My 1970 Z-L came to the UK in this way. Yours seems to have been imported by a Japanese businessman working in the UK, which is exactly how my 1972 Fairlady 240ZG came to the UK. Maybe even the same guy? To pin down more Z or Z-L differences, check out the bumpers ( no rubber trim on original S30-S bumpers ) carpets ( usually rubber mats only on the S30-S, but carpets could have been installed later ) sunvisors ( sometimes only one on the S30-S ) and seat recliners ( non-standard on an S30-S, but Optional equipment ). Lots of other things - which admittedly could have been changed / updated / upgraded across the years - but the transmission already gives a clue that it is the rarer and more basic S30-S. Alfadog posted a link to another recent thread that he started which details the Options on these cars. Should make interesting reading for you. I'm slap in the centre of car-unfriendly London. Where are you? Cheers, Alan T.

Nice detective work, Mike! The car will certainly have had another number after the '851'. Let's wait and see what it is ( if it can be seen ). Actually, the "late" Tony Fall is still very much alive. Did Bob mean somebody else had passed away? That's sad. We need to catch up with many of the characters and hear their stories before its too late.... Cheers, Alan T.

Luckily, I had my Radar switched on. Thanks Gary :classic:

Enrique, As Zedrally pointed out, there's just a white dot on knob - no symbol ( it would be too small, I'd have thought ). The Option picture is portraying the push-knob on the end of the stalk only ( not the pull-back function which switches from Main Beam to Dipped Beam on the headlamps and back again - which I believe all the cars had? ). The S30-S Fairlady Z ( the 'basic' no-frills model ) didn't have the little knob on the stalk because this function was one of the things that model was missing as Standard Equipment. It still had the pull-back function of the stalk, and of course the Turn Signal Indicator switch function. I have genuine Nissan wiring diagrams for all the early Japanese-market models, but they won't fit on my scanner in one piece ( too big ). Would a scan of a particular section be of any use?

That half-vinyl roof must be aftermarket, as the Nissan one covered the whole roof.

Very gallantly, too! No shame in that. One would hope / expect to find information about ALL the first-generation Z cars on a website with the name "zhome", but sadly it seems that some are deemed "irrelevant"........

No, certainly not commonly seen these days - but I bet there were originally more takers than we think. Luckily, I think most of the cars fitted with these either died of shame or got a haircut in later life. This is one early '70's style accessory that probably can't come back without a hint of irony. Don't forget that the one in the picture is the Z432 version. I think there were a few different styles that replaced eachother? Kats would certainly know more about that. The Factory safety / roll-over bar bolted to the captive nuts inside the rear quarters ( which are sitting there quietly on ALL the first-generation cars, waiting to be called on to do their job ). We had a few discussions on the subject here a while ago ( I recall the thread was started by myself, and - I think - was called something like "what are these for?" ) and didn't somebody pour scorn on the idea.....? It was a nicely-made affair, and quite complicated in its bracketry. The Works race and rally cars used this design for the first few years of competition. This simply meant that you would have to order them specially ( probably meaning a little bit of an extra wait while it was made and delivered ). The standard colours would have been more readily available. Yes, the 432-R *only* came in 918 GP Orange. That was the standard colour for that model. One colour only. I'm told that nobody special-ordered another colour ( they'd have to be very lucky or influential to have it made ) but the race cars soon got repainted into team and sponsor colours anyway. My 432-R replica is in 920 'Safari Gold' just to be arch and all clever and knowing about it ha bloody ha etc. A radio with new-fangled Frequency Modulation capacity, I think. I don't know about the rest of the world, but there wasn't much FM radio in my neck of the woods around 1970. I suspect that Japan was slightly ahead of Blighty ( colour telly? what's that? ), but it was still probably relatively exotic back then? I think it was worth the wait for the bigger pics, but the list / descriptions of the unpictured items are probably more important to our discussion in the long term. I'll put the late 1971 brochure Options up tomorrow. Thanks for the thankyou. Cheers, Alan T.

Hi Victor, I think there is a very good chance that they were "EverWing" brand, but I've not seen the EverWing script on them - so not definite on that.

Hi Dylan, Looks like you came to the right place That'll be a Nissan ( not Datsun ) Fairlady Z ( Model 'S30-S' ) or Fairlady Z-L ( model 'S30' ). From its serial number, it looks as though its a relatively early build date - certainly in the first half of 1970. The lack of prefix on the VIN code signifies that it was fitted with the L20A six cylinder engine, as you stated. The Fairlady Z and Fairlady Z-L shared a number sequence of their own, so number 1712 could still be either model, and any one of a number of specs in each model. The VIN tells us a bit - but not everything. Hopefully we can help you to narrow down more details about the car, but for that we need to ask more questions. Pics would be very useful ( and should help to differentiate between the Z and Z-L models fairly quickly ). One thing I would point out is that you really ought not to think of it as a "240Z" in any way. The "240Z" model was only one of several S30-series Z models. I can understand why you would tend to think of the car as a "240Z", but its technically incorrect. I have a very similar car myself ( also in the UK ). If you need any further help / info / documentation etc then I will be very pleased to assist. Cheers, Alan T.

Err, probably not actually. I think you will find that zhome.com largely ignores the type of car that Dylan is seeking information on.

Good points, all the way through. Nobody ever seems to remember that the first generation was built down to a price. If it hadn't been designed and assembled in the way it was, then it couldn't have been sold at the price. If it couldn't have been sold at that price ( even allowing slick dealers some leeway to jack the prices up once demand could not meet supply ) then America would not have consumed so many of them. That's a chicken and egg situation. Of course, its easy to be wise 30-odd years after the event ( when so much has changed, including us ) and talk about "improving" the cars over and above what they were originally built as. It stands to reason that it can be done "better" today ( with all the subjectivity behind that word ) than it was necessary or possible to do back then. I find it amazing that people think only of what the car turns out like today in the 21st Century, after many hundreds of hours and many thousands of Dollars have been spent on them, and seemingly not about the business pressures 30-odd years ago when Japan was struggling to make products to sell around the world. I agree. Mohammed really ought to go to the mountain, rather than the mountain coming to Mohammed. Want to meet me in Japan, daddz?

I didn't think it was aimed at me Michael. Sorry if it looked like I was taking a shot in your direction. I was answering Victor's plea for calm. It's annoying to think people seem to have time to complain to Admin but can't be bothered to make a post confronting the issue on the thread concerned.

Now I get it! Bill Ramsey is your alter ego! Now I understand why you don't understand........

Ooh, I sure hope I haven't offended anybody. :cheeky: Just for the record, I'm doing all my complaining out in the open. Not in PM's or reports to Admin.

Maybe you're getting slightly mixed up. I think you might be thinking of "The Quiet American" which was a novel by Graham Greene ( an English author ). It was a work of fiction, of course. :cheeky:

No, actually just two separate paragraphs on the same subject. The confusion was yours. Who are these "some other people" then? Do I need to guess who they are and ask them about it myself? I notice that you are taking quotes from me and adding your own emphasis to them with that "I" insertion. That's just what you did yesterday - taking quotes from me and using them out of context against me. Once again, I invite you to go back to my post and read it UNTIL you understand it properly. The whole post was in reply to the rhetorical question posed to me. You obviously made the mistake of reading between the lines and hanging your own feelings about me on my own words. Mistake. You should have been looking at the next post from me instead. Maybe you'd like to invite me to PM's again so that you can tell me more politely to do what you want me to do.

How about you try me, though? I'm an "English Asshole" remember - maybe you need to give me a bit of help to understand.

Wrong. I know more about this than you do, so its not your call.