HS30-H

Bearing in mind that Carl Beck asserted this... "I on the other hand see evolution as a distinct series of small incremental changes, leading from the origin to the current example. I see no such incremental progression between the L20 and L20A. Rather I see a completely different engine, unlike any that Nissan had ever produced before - pop up out of nowhere - with the appearance of the L16 in late 67 as specified for the PL510 in 1966. I do see clear incremental evolution from the L16 to the L13 (same block de-stroked & head) and then to the L24 (same block/head with two additional cylinders) and L20A (same block design / head design cast in a smaller bore, and in some cases with small main bearing supports) all sharing a visibly common design, quite different from the Mercedes looking L20 of 65." ...I'm wondering where you will go with your "our cars have Mercedes engines!" line of thinking. Carl says that - in effect - the L20 six and the L16/L24 are 'not related'. If that was the case (hint: it's nonsense...) then what...?

Garbage.

If you read through the thread I linked to earlier, you'll see why I'm a little bit more cynical. Edited to add: You're exercising yourself to show how similar the M180 was to the Nissan L-gata, and also saying you have 'faith' in Carl's research. Meanwhile Carl was spending a lot of energy trying to push his view that Hiroshi Iida's 1964/5 L20 six was quite a different animal from the '1966' L16 and L24 and that the L16 and L24 were effectively 'clean slate' designs not related to, or evolved from, that L20 six. So, what's the M180 closest to? The 'original' L20 six, or the came-out-of-nowhere-just-for-the-USA L16 and L24? If you concur with Carl's 'research', it has to be one or the other, and not both because he says they are "not related". See how silly all this 'made-for-the-USA' stuff gets?

Except that the starter position for the first L20 six was on the left side of the engine. Except the thermostat housing/top radiator hose on the first L20 six, and even on the early L20A, was in the middle of the 'head on the left hand side. Fuel pump location/drive is also different. Except the drive for the distributor/oil pump jackshaft on the M180 is not taken direct from the crank snout as it was on the L-gata. I think there's a certain amount of confirmatory bias at play here. Yes, the cam towers, finger cam followers, follower pivots & springs, oil spray bar etc are very similar and there are close cribs of details to do with the distributor/oil pump jackshaft, but there are also numerous differences both large and small. The Nissan L-gata is not a direct copy of the M180, is it?

Hi Mike, Great shots! I have not seen those before. Yes, I would agree that the Skyline 2000GT (GC10) shot is certainly from the 1969 show, as the Nissan show hostess uniforms changed every year. That's definitely the 1969 type show uniform and - indeed - the same young lady in both shots.

Take a peep here:

Meh. Groundhog Day (again). We've been over this several times before on the forum here. Carl Beck's commissioned 'translation' of the Nostalgic Hero article leaves a lot to be desired and has the usual "made for the USA" type skew which puts the cart so far out in front of the horse that it might as well book a motel room for the night while the poor horse catches up. At the risk of invoking Deja Vu (all over again....) I'll ask - yes, again.... ...and this was? What 4 cylinder block did Hiroshi Iida "add two cylinders" to? What does "he used" mean here? Personally I'd give Hiroshi Iida the benefit of the doubt and argue that he was 'inspired by' the MB valvetrain layout and packaging. His design was not exactly the same. I don't believe any patents were licensed, let alone infringed. MB must have been satisfied there was enough difference, or just not bothered. The M180 was an MB engine. The G7 was a Prince engine. The L20 and subsequent 'L-gata module' engines were Nissan engines.

I will put aside a spare copy for you here. I made a small contribution to the content, so I've got some to give away to friends and family.

Morita san has long been working on a new MOTOR Magazine 'mook', finally released on 24th October, and weighing in at just under 1kg. You'll see lots of never-seen-before photos and the usual high production and editorial values of MOTOR Magazine. Text is mostly Japanese, but the photos are in English. Heartily recommended!

Ten years ago, some of my photo posts on this thread were scans taken from original Japanese magazines of the period. Quality could have been better. And now it can be. Morita san of MOTOR Magazine has kindly posted scans of some the original photos from their archives:

It was a half-scale concept model.

The Nissan stand area at the '69 Tokyo show was quite extensive. Here are some images of other Nissan product on display:

Thread bump for the 24th October 2019 50th Anniversary. A couple more images from the 1969 Tokyo show stand:

Personally speaking, I have gradually learned to be more pragmatic. Plenty of replica stuff on my cars. Perfect is the enemy of good.

A good sheetmetal worker could probably make a fairly convincing replica for you. I have a couple of spare originals, but once the selling price and shipping are factored in you might be better off commissioning the replica instead.

Would you say that the styling/design/engineering accommodated other markets/contemporary variants, or not? Rhetorical question: How about other models, or was the S30-series Z somehow unique? NB: I'm not saying that the S30-series Z was conceived, styled, designed and engineered mainly as a Japanese market model (who would say that?) but that the cars themselves - and the components they are built up from - tell us that the "Made For The USA" story is more of an advertising slogan than anything else. If you've seen all the contemporary variants in the metal and examined them closely, I don't see that you can think other than that these cars were very cleverly designed and engineered to accommodate several different contemporary variants and markets. Just like pretty much all of Nissan's product of the same period, in fact.

You didn't have to wait very long, did you? ?

So what does "it was for the USA" actually mean? Looking at the cars themselves - quite apart from any anecdotal evidence - it is clear that this was a series of multiple variants intended to be sold into several different markets. Take another peep up-thread at the photo of the factory aircon system which Kats posted. Was that "for the USA"? Targeting the largest single market for bulk sales was not exactly rocket science, was it? VW, MG, Triumph, Jaguar, Austin-Healey, Fiat, MB, Porsche and even Ferrari did the same. How many times do we hear the "made for the USA" strap line attached to their products? Almost never, of course. Largely because "we made this for YOU" wasn't part of their sales patter. The numbers are - by definition - after the fact. I don't see that they 'prove' anything much about concept, styling and engineering? They may (may...) illustrate economic achievement (there's a possibility that the dealers in the USA made as much - if not more - out of each car sold than Nissan themselves did) but would be subject to all sorts of Force Majeure and it is clear in retrospect that the 1965-ish through 1978-ish period was blessed as something of a golden age when a lot of holes in the cheese lined up. Katayama's bucket anecdote sums it up neatly but, in contrast, by the 1980s you had changing economics, anti-Japanese sentiment growing and the UAW saying "If you sell in America, build in America". If sales figures proved "made for" then why don't people say "made for" about all those Jaguars and Porsches, let alone the hundreds of thousands of little Datsun pickup trucks the USA consumed? I'm not even going to touch the Canada angle. I'm always reading about the success of this "made for the USA" idea with regard to the '240Z' (yes, it usually paints '240Z' as "the first" or "the original", ignoring the other contemporary variants in the series and oblivious to the idea that '240Z' might mean more than one thing...) so when and how was this applied to other models? 'Dumbed down, softened up, piled high and sold cheap'. How's about that for a slogan?

Would you happen to know what part of the USA it was originally sold in? Could it have been considered 'wet/snowy' for a significant part of the year?

Except that we are constantly told that these cars were "...made for the USA", "...designed for the USA", "...would not exist if it were not for the USA" etc etc. The truth is that several different variants and pretty much a world market were accommodated in the concept, design, styling, engineering and production of the S30-series Z range. All I can say is, don't hold your breath...! So many people were involved in the process, and so many decisions were taken, that we probably should not expect every question to have one, clear, answer. For me, the questions are part of the fun.

With respect, I think the answer - for your 1971 production HLS30U model - was clearly given by Kats further up the thread. The highest probability is that your car did NOT come with one as-delivered from the factory, but could accommodate the fitting of one if that's what you want to do.

If you look further at your car you will see other details that were added because the parts/assemblies were common with those used on other variants and other market models. For example, your radiator support panel has holes and captive nuts to accommodate the fitting of an oil cooler, radiator overflow reservoir tank and air filter box/ducting. Your front differential crossmember has double cutouts and double captive nuts to allow the mounting of a twin pipe exhaust system. There are many details like these on our cars. The holes for the splash pan mounting screws were added to the relevant structural parts of the monocoque when they were made and those components were shared across other variants/markets, so their presence does not necessarily indicate that the car was originally fitted with a splash pan. More that the structure was designed and manufactured with the ability to accommodate one. I think that's a pretty good guess. It seems that some climates considered wet/snowy got the splash pans, whilst others possibly considered predominately 'dry' (except when I go there on holiday...) did not. A little like the initial heated rear window situation for the HLS30U, perhaps? There's also the possibility of a cost factor - however minor - being involved. Some of the decisions made about the HLS30U variants seem to be about cutting costs wherever possible in order to mitigate the chosen selling price. In my experience the splash pans - it does what it says on the box - are very effective. Perhaps a little too vulnerable, and they get in the way when you want to work under the car, but they work.

Certainly all UK market, and - as far as I am aware - all 'Euro' market cars - DID have the splash pan.

It's a quality control stamp which reads 合格 ('Go Kaku') meaning 'Pass(ed)'.