HS30-H

My impression was that he's restoring cars for his own collection. How do you know they are going to be sold?

This is the front row of the supporting bill GTS class race at the Japan GP meeting on May 4th 1971 at Fuji Speedway. Car No.16 is Kenji Tohira (240ZR), No.24 is Kunimitsu Takahashi (240Z), No.25 is Yoshichika Kiyoma (Z432-R) and No.23 is Haruhito Yanagida (Z432-R). The race was won by Kenji Tohira in his SCCN-entered Fairlady 240ZR, the only Works car in the race.

I think the pattern was that Safari cars had 240 km/h speedos, probably because some pretty high sustained speeds were possible on certain sections and the was no legal speed limit. Monte and RAC cars would tend to see lower sustained stage speeds, and would have to conform to local speed limits on the road sections which linked the special stages. Yes, an accurate speedo would be of use to the driver when being required to maintain a certain speed on the road sections, but the navigator had the Haldas and Heuers to help with that too. It was the navigator's job to make sure that they checked in - and out - of time controls, service points and Parc Ferme on time. Navigator is the boss!

Yes, that's Tony Fall and Mike Wood on a typical Forestry Commission track special stage of the 1971 Fram Castrol International Welsh Rally, in 'TKS 33 SA 696' - the Works team car that John Bloxham had used on the 1970 RAC Rally five months previously - which had been loaned by the Works team and was serviced by Old Woking Service Station. They won outright! This was the second international rally win for the 240Z, following Herrmann & Schuller's win on the East African Safari Rally in April.

I think they are made by Nishi san at 'Revive Jalopy' in Saitama, Japan.

Not wishing to divert attention from 'TKS 33 SA 986', but to give a little extra context on the Works cars and a similar case of a Lazarus-like revival, please let me add a post to tell the tale of 'TKS 33 SA 3640'. I hope it will encourage @xs10shlin his task and help drive him along his road to restoration. 'TKS 33 SA 3640' was one of a batch of four RHD lightweight HS30 Datsun 240Z rally cars built up by the Works team at Oppama during the third quarter of 1971, for the express purpose of taking part in the 1971 RAC Rally here in the UK in late November. It was driven on the event by German-born Kenyan national Edgar Herrmann and his German co-driver/navigator Hans Schuller who had won the East African Safari Rally in their lightweight HS30 Datsun 240Z 'TKS 33 SA 1223' in April. That Safari win gave them a high seeding and a start number of '5', which would be something of an advantage on a forest type rally. But Herrmann - famously - had never rallied on snow before, and it was something of a certainty on the RAC. In fact, unusually heavy snow caused so much disruption on the event that a high number of special stages were cancelled/annulled halfway through and service crews struggled to make rendezvous with their team cars. There was a high rate of attrition. Herrmann/Schuller finished, but were classified 17th overall and 5th in the Group 4 class. Team members Rauno Aaltonen and Tony Fall were both non-finishers, but Shekhar Mehta - driving one of the previous year's RAC cars - finished 19th overall and 6th in Group 4. Privateer Rob Janssen - driving ex-'TKS 33 SA 986', now registered on Dutch plates '67-54-RU' and the subject of this thread - also retired. After the RAC 'TKS 33 SA 3640' stayed in the UK and was used for promotional duties by Datsun UK. Eventually it was sold to a Datsun dealership and was used on various UK rally events during the following years. It changed hands a couple of times, but eventually ended up in storage on a farm in the far north east of England. It stayed there - narrowly escaping a fire at one point - until bought by my dear friend Kevin Bristow in 1996. Decrepit, somewhat rusty (to say the least...) but largely complete, intact and authentic. Kevin started a long and slow process of research, parts (re)acquisition and restoration. I had the pleasure of being a small part in all of that. To cut a long story short, Kevin finished the car in 2008. Twelve years! The result is stunning. It was featured in the August 2009 edition of OCTANE Magazine with studio shots and a great write-up by Paul Hardiman (see attached). Kevin also took it to the 2009 Chatsworth Rally Show in Derbyshire, and demonstrated the car on the short Special Stage in the grounds of Chatsworth House. I got the honour of pretending to be the navigator (or Self Loading Freight perhaps...) whilst Kevin didn't hold back. The car got wet and muddy, as it was built to do. Fully alive again. '3640' on the 1971 RAC Rally: Classic & Sport Car Magazine 'as found' report: Post-restoration OCTANE Magazine feature: "Forensics". Pretty much, yes: And in action at the 2009 Chatsworth Rally Show: I hope the above is an inspiration and encouragement to @xs10shlin his journey to restore and refurbish 'TKS 33 SA 986'.

This question starts out with a somewhat false premise. According to Nissan, a 'PZR' is very specifically a PS30-SB model Fairlady Z432-R. The Works rally car we are discussing here is a hybrid HLS30-prefixed 'Datsun 240Z' which utilised many of the PZR-specific thinner-gauge body pressings, ancillary parts and Nissan Race/Sports Option lightweight components. The terminology is tricky. We are trying to describe what are effectively PZR bodies, but with L-gata engines and HS30 and HLS30 chassis numbers. I have sympathy with @xs10shl because he is clearly using the 'PZR' term in an attempt to get across the specific and really very special nature of the early 'Lightweight' bodied Works rally cars. I myself find it difficult to get across to people the true nature of these beasts and how different they were from the '72-up 'Full Fat' Works cars (I sometimes call these 'Steel and Glass' cars, as opposed to the '70 and '71 'FRP and Acrylic' cars). The truth is that these early Works cars existed in a rather interesting grey area where the manufacturer was - shall we say - bending the rules somewhat. The cars were running in international events sanctioned by the FIA and were supposed to be conforming to the production-based Group 3 and Group 4 regulations according to the FIA 3023 homologation papers. But PZRs were Group 5 'Prototype' cars (due to their low build quantity), so the early lightweight Works 240Z rally cars were running with what could be seen as 'Prototype' class bodyshells in a Production-based championship. A competing team could easily have accused them of cheating, if they had known. PZR build quantities? Good luck with that. Nissan have always been vague about it, for good reason. We know how many roadgoing PZRs they sold - we even know their chassis numbers - but how many Works competition PZRs did they build for their own use? Some of them didn't even have chassis numbers. And what do you do about counting a factory PZR race car that has had an L24R engine put into it and the chassis tag altered to suit? You end up dancing on the head of a pin. We can't expect to be furnished with the full story, or even expect that such a thing exists. And that - for me at least - is part of the fascination.

May I? Here's an excerpt from an original contact sheet of photos taken by Neill Bruce at Old Woking Service Station here in England, prior to the 1971 RAC Rally. I purchased all Neill's Works rally-related negatives and he signed the copyright over to me. Rob Janssen brought the car over from Holland in November and had Old Woking Service Station prep it for the event. They added a thick rubber fuel tank shield to give some extra protection and also a pair of rudimentary silencers to the original Works twin exhaust in an effort to cut down on noise. Not for the general public or the event scrutineers, but for the occupants... Also visible in the photos: The rear garnish cut-arounds for the quick-change rear lamp units, the mudflaps, the 100 litre tank, the auxiliary reversing lamp, the Dutch registration/license plate and - most importantly of all from a provenance perspective - the factory 'Kanri'/maintenance code number '8D-424' on the bottom RH side of the rear valance.

The silver vertical is only one part of the heated screen system. There are zig-zagging horizontal elements embedded in the glass (just like a modern heated 'screen) which cover at least 90% of the glass. They are very effective.

No takers yet? Don't want to spoil the fun, but I'd be in my element (ahem...) if I tried to answer. 😉

No, it wasn't. Marcel Roks tried to get involved as a broker, but the car was bought direct from the owner in the Netherlands. I've known of the car since around 2005 and in 2006 I travelled to Holland to inspect and authenticate it at the invitation of the then-owner.

Thank you @xs10shl for starting this thread. It is something of a relief after the mild social media hubbub following its appearance at the ZONC 50th Anniversary meet. Seems a few people got a not-unpleasant surprise. Not many people knew the car still existed. My inbox got very busy! "Is it The Real Thing?" was a frequent question... Yes, it is very much The Real Thing. This is an important car. Important to us as S30-series Z enthusiasts, important to Nissan/Datsun history and important within the history of the rallying world and the International Championship Of Makes (predecessor to the World Rally Championship For Manufacturers, which began in 1973). Nissan built a surprising number of these cars, but very few survive. Off the top of my head I can only think of SIX genuine Works 240Z rally cars that are still known to exist as complete entities, along with TWO ex-Works rally bodyshells converted to circuit race cars. Three of the former are owned by Nissan themselves and two are here in the UK. And this car is the earliest known surviving Works 240Z rally car. It also has the bonus of being an example of the 'Lightweight' body type (incorporating many of the thinner-gauge sheetmetal pressings used on the 'PZR' Fairlady Z432-R) and the Works team built it with fibreglass hood, tailgate and doors to offset the weight of the extra equipment a top line rally car needed. Drilling down into the details you could fill a book. Make no mistake, these cars were very special indeed and almost every part is custom or modified in some way over stock. They were hand built by a relatively small team of specialists at Nissan's Oppama-based competition department in small batches, each batch dedicated to one main event: RAC Rally, Monte Carlo Rallye and East African Safari Rally being the main three and the Safari being Target Number One. So each batch was different and the specifications of the cars and parts used evolved in steps as upgrades whilst also needing to comply with new regulations. Because of this evolution it is dangerous to generalise and say "the Works rally cars had...". Probably better to point at a batch, or talk about the cars on a case-by-case basis. For me, that makes them all the more fascinating.

I can save you the trouble of looking. There's nothing in the FIA 3023 fiche which covers the handbrake or console.

If you're referring to the LH-switched handbrake lever, it only* identifies it as an LHD Works rally Z. Not necessary on RHD ones. *'only' doing a lot of heavy lifting in this context...

Here's a UK Z Club forum thread which gives a peep past the smoke and mirrors involved in TV shows of this nature: https://zclub.net/community/index.php?threads/salvage-hunters-classic-cars-280z.29319/ Presenter Drew Pritchard is something of a running joke over here, and this 'Salvage Hunters Classic Cars' series is a spin-off from his antiques & collectables-based 'Salvage Hunters' shows. He usually doesn't have the first clue what he's talking about, makes some inexplicable decisions (like the totally unnecessary metal 280Z emblem manufacture) and the cars often turn out to be All Fur Coat And No Knickers...

I think that would be appropriate if the context suited, but definitely a niche interest. And - as is often the case with Works parts - something of a moving target in terms of evolution. Which version to replicate? There's also a philosophical conflict between original parts and replica/re-popped parts when the originals were never sold to the general public in the first place. Can be something of a minefield. I'm still not sure what I think about all that...

I'm possibly not the best person to answer the question regarding what was available for the LHD models, but - as far as I am aware - the full range of Nissan Sports/Race Option parts, as seen in the Japanese market, were not readily available for buyers in Export markets until Nissan started issuing their catalogues in English. Certain individuals, race and rally preparation shops and dealers got access to the Japanese catalogues through their own contacts and purchased parts privately (reportedly this could often be a struggle...) but it was not until the mid 1970s that this became a little easier. 'Datsun Competition' in the USA seemed to sell a mixture of Japanese made parts and locally-sourced products, and - for example - their 99996-E1140 'Competition Header' for the L6 was certainly a locally-made version with a single merged outlet rather than the typical Japanese 'binocular' twin-pipe outlet. The Works rally cars usually had hand-made exhaust manifolds with the expected creeping evolutionary differences. They were always made in Japan and the cars arrived fully built and ready for the events, even if a little local modification (to suit driver and navigator preference) was performed locally by a combination of Works and satellite team personnel. Because of their position on the cars the manifolds are quite camera shy, but here are some I have captured:

Lovely E4620 tubular manifold, Kats! Talking about the E7275 (later E7276) Race Option megaphone exhaust, a friend of mine owns this one. A rare survivor:

Indeed. I just can't understand where the wires got crossed. This is a promo tie-up between Nissan and Shell. The presenter clearly thinks he's looking at The Real Thing, so who told him that's what was in front of him? Nissan? Shell? Somebody else? And how come he didn't spot the rather glaring and obvious differences? Unfathomable. Meanwhile, back in Japan, '1223' is looking a little annoyed:

Director's Cut re-title: "Seen Through arse"

Clip from Nissan/Shell Juke 'Safari Tribute' promo with giant clanger: https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxJJNZD8xa441B5l_PF6tpOd1rprahTMIs "The actual...." Nope.

That's very kind of you Kats. Thank you. Japanese engineering of the 19th and 20th centuries is a fascinating topic, mixed up with all kinds of politics and social history. A period of rapid changes with extreme highs and lows. I am intrigued by it.

I don't agree with the 'Mercedes engine' (MB design - licensed to Prince - inherited by Nissan after merger with Prince) thing with regard to the L6. We've taken that apart on this forum in the past:

Quite a lot to discuss (nitpick) there..... Worthy of its own thread, I'd say.

Probably later. Either when the engine was complete and signed-off as OK, and/or when it was assigned to a destination/batch of cars. Factory replacement/motorsport L24 blocks were supplied machined, but without an engine number. Seems to indicate the above. No real surprise that engine block casting dates/batches didn't match up with assigned engine numbers in a completely linear fashion. Stack up a rack of block castings and they could get mixed fairly thoroughly as they passed through the stages of being cleaned, machined and built up into complete engines. Last on the rack, first off the rack etc. All coming out in the wash over a certain time period. I wouldn't expect very many "Oh! I just found one down the back of the shelf" type scenes. Batch/shift number I should think? Not enough letters seen for them to be days. Too many to be weeks of the month. QC would want a trace line to help isolate any problem batches.