HS30-H

So are you stating categorically that nobody said it, or are you stating that the L20 six was not the six cylinder engine first slated for the 'Maru Z'/'270KK' project? As I asked before (rhetorically...), how could anyone - let alone Katayama - have specifically requested the L20A or L24 when they didn't even exist at that point? And why are you apparently so scared to consider that the 'old' L20 six was part of the design and engineering process? What's the problem with that? Which "existing 4 cylinder block" was that? Twin carb versions of the C130-series Cedric were never dropped and the 'old' L20 six - with progressive updates and improvements in materials - was produced and sold well into 1970. This is one of the casualties of a poor non-technical translation of the Hiroshi Iida interview in Nos Hero and a lack of understanding of the Japanese market models. Of course, what you're doing is setting out your stall to paint the L20 six as 'bad' and the L16/L24 as 'good'. Because... Ah, here it is. L16 being portrayed as genesis with no mention of the L13. Because... Katayama Lore ahoy! When did Katayama know the L24 was "coming", Carl? Got a date for that? And we have the old "L16 for America" nonsense in there too. The L16 - designed along with the L13 - was part of the L-gata modular series that was used in the Japanese market, later to include the L14, L15 and L18. The L16 was not "for America", it was for Nissan, and the Japanese market got it too. Katayama was not "responsible for getting the L16 designed", he was simply lobbying for more power, more flexibility and better driveability, which was what the Japanese market also wanted. He was not creating particular bore and stroke combinations. You're painting the L20 six as some kind of failure. What does "short lived" mean? It was in production for a good five years and used for export markets as well as domestic. Being the very first Nissan 'L-gata' OHC design it was due for updating by 1969, which was a natural process and made sense for ongoing commonalisation of componentry, installations and servicing. You're drawing an arbitrary line in the middle of a normal progression. Like they did with - for example - the C10-series Skyline? It debuted in short-nose form (G15 4cyl engine) in July 1967, with the L20 six - yes, the 'bad' one, following in September 1968 with the debut of the GC10 models. At one point Nissan was selling C10-series Skylines with both the 'old' L20 six and the updated L20A in the C10-series Skyline lineup, with the 'A' suffix added to avoid confusion between the two types. So, far from Nissan not "planning on using an engine that was going out of production", they did just that very thing on the C10-series Skyline. C10-series Skyline production during its 1967 through 1972 life was knocking on the door of half a million units. The first six cylinder engine slated for the 'Maru Z'/'270KK' project - which would become the S30-series Z - can only have been the 'old' L20 six, because that's all that existed at the time. It was soon joined by the S20 and, by the time the project matured, the L20 had progressed - naturally - to its updated L20A type form. Unless we look at what else Nissan was designing and producing during the same period we will never fully understand the S30-series Z.

His name was Hiroshi Iida: 飯田浩 (Iida Hiroshi). That's usually romanised with a double letter 'i', although a macron over a single letter 'i' might be more accurate linguistically: Īda Hiroshi.

It's garbage, but India is not to blame for it.

Evidently so in the case you show, but I'm surprised that people don't seem to be ready to accept the possibility of a little chaos theory sprinkled through all this. How about the possibility that Mr Suzuki's pot of yellow paint was running a little low, and that a little bit of thinner was added to save him opening another one? Or that Mr Yamaguchi preferred a thinned consistency whilst traditionalist Mr Mori liked a well-stirred thick daub, and young Mr Ito - who had a late night last night - didn't stir his pot as well as she should have? And all that on just one shift... I think we should be cautious of creating set-in-stone definitions for what are human-added elements subject to natural variation.

In that case what "prototype" with a 4cyl engine was sent to the USA, and ended up with a 6cyl engine for production on Katayama's say-so? Nissan's most successful models in the north American market all used 4cyl engines. As I've pointed out, those "couldn't keep up with Freeway traffic", "dangerously slow" and "more power needed" stories come from the first Datsun models sent to the USA in late 1950s. Yes, they were underpowered and Japanese consumers - just as much as anyone else - needed a better product. The likes of Nissan, Toyota, Prince, Honda, Isuzu, Mazda and others were busy making that a reality less than 15 years after the total devastation of war.

Are you citing this as evidence of fact? I'd say it makes it even clearer that we are talking about the work of many hands, most of them not even getting a name-check. Hitoshi Uemura, for example. Personal anecdote: I stood in front of Yutaka Katayama in Japan and listened while he said "I designed it". But he was already well into his nineties and I didn't take it literally. He was standing next to Yoshihiko Matsuo, who didn't bat an eyelid. If we are going to research and curate the history of these cars we have to weight up all evidence and come to a studied and balanced view. Relying on one source - as though it is the font of all truth and wisdom - is just not enough.

(my snipping and my bold highlighting) This is just more cart before horse style retrospective storytelling. How would it have been possible for the 'L24' to be specified at a time when it did not even exist? Katayama was not an engineer and would not have been calling for a specific bore and stroke combination of the L6. He can only have been calling for more capacity and/or more power for his market. We've had this discussion before, Carl. You used to cite the L24 and S20 as being 'the' engines for the S30-series Z at a point in the development process when only the (old, pre-'A') L20 six and S20 existed. You have often painted the L20 six (L20A in final production) engine as some kind of 'afterthought' for the Japanese market, but the timeline - and confirmed facts from the likes of Hitoshi Uemura - shows that this was not the case. When Matsuo describes the changes to the body styling/shape/size due to the decision to go with the six cylinder engines, he is talking about the L20 and the S20, not the L24 and S20.

There's only one person to blame for the "Goertz Myth" and that's Goertz himself. He was busy at the 1970 New York show telling anybody who would listen that he had "designed" the 240Z that he was standing in front of. The journalists didn't come up with the story out of thin air...

This is a perfect example of what I'm tempted to call Katayama Lore. The origin of the anecdote was Mr Koichi IWATA of Nissan Japan's Export Department, who accompanied the display of two cars (210-series Bluebirds) and a small pickup truck at the 1958 Los Angeles Imported Car Show. Mr IWATA reported that he drove at least one of the 210s around the Los Angeles area, and that it had struggled to keep up with traffic on the freeways. His conclusion was that it was almost dangerously underpowered for freeway on-ramps and inclines in comparison with larger-engined domestics. Of course, he reported this to his superiors in Japan. Mr KATAYAMA appears to have, and I'm being polite here..., inherited the anecdote as his own. Mr KATAYAMA arrived in the USA in 1960... No 4 cyl 'prototype' of the S30-series Z was sent to the USA.

I think one of the problems with the narrative for the creation of what became the S30-series Z - pretty much right from the beginning - was that the story was being told as though it was a single, linear, progression which somehow started in the body styling department. In fact there were several parallel lines of progression which merged later - each of them influencing the other - but without the "Go/No Go" from the product planners and engineers the work of the body styling department would go nowhere. Largely unsung is the work of Hajime SUITSU and Hidemi KANBARA, and of course Hitoshi UEMURA and the other staff of Nissan's Vehicle Design Section No.3, but Teiichi HARA could easily be cited as "The Father Of The Z" and as the man who really flicked the switch to "Go". But we should not be looking for a single figure as 'creator' because this project was the work of many hands. People get upset when I protest at the overstated influence of Yutaka KATAYAMA in the story. It really, really ruffles feathers and even the mildest examination of key facts is taken as some kind of blasphemy. Katayama was a great man, a very very influential figure in NMC USA's story and in the Japanese auto industry as a whole, but the truth is that he had a supporting actor's role in the 'Maru Z' play and his walk-on part was in the third act. Uemura san gives due credit to many of his colleagues, and his quoted section from Teiichi Hara's book is given a prominence intended - I believe - to tell us where he believes that "Go" decision really came from...

I don't want to spoil the fun too early, but the English language version of Uemura san's book doesn't include any such anecdote and Katayama's 'influence' on any aspect of development is put firmly back in its box. I'm temped to say "none of the above" in answer to Kats' question. One of the tricky aspects to Uemura san's book is that it pops back and forth between specifications and development points for planning and prototyping and it all starts to get a bit jumbled up. S20 (G8B) engine is specified after initial decision to use the L20 six cylinder engine ('L20A' updated variant didn't exist at that time...) so it cannot really be #3. Styling designers were styling designers, so they might well have wanted more power but it wasn't in their remit to specify it, so it cannot be #1. Uemura san says that L16 (4-cyl) and L20 (6-cyl) were the two initial engine choices - simultaneously - and the L16 was dropped because production was planned to take place alongside the Roadsters at the Hiratsuka plant. So the answer could be that both four and six cylinder engines were part of the plan from the beginning (true 'beginning' being a sightly nebulous point...) and that there was no "four to six" engine metamorphosis. It was four AND six, then just six. Three types of six...

I would say that @Mike B will be a great resource for references on this particular car. Hopefully he'll be watching.

I would expect the material of the Z-S rubber mats to be the same as those the very first Export cars, but of course the shape would be different in RHD vs LHD configurations with the details for the pedal areas also differing. Rib pattern area is port-to-starboard rather than fore-to-aft. I think the photo on question might show an extra foot mat over the original full-length mat? Here's the passenger side Z-S floor mat in my 432-R replica for comparison:

It's the 'Seibi' sticker. Maintenance/check precautions. Annoying Nanny State stuff which used to be known as common sense... If the printed writing is still legible its a good pointer to a little-used car I'd say. Enthusiastic cleaning rubbed them bare.

The 'S30-S' model came from the factory with rubber mats (visible forward of the seat in that photo) rather than carpets, but I presume it is something attached to/around the forward seat bracket. Looks like a piece of foam or something to my eye, but hard to tell. I don't think it's anything worth worrying about...

Forward seat-mount brackets, as fitted to the Japanese market cars:

Judging by the bumpers (no rubber trim) I'd say it is likely to be an S30-S model 'Z-S' / 'Z-Std' / 'Standard' Fairlady Z rather than a Deluxe. The S30-S model had a 4-speed transmission as stock equipment, but the 5-speed O/D trans was an extra cost showroom option. Should be pretty easy to pin down the original model type. It looks to be in great unmessed-with 'survivor' condition and should be pretty easy to sell. Why not try to sell it here on classiczcars.com? Is it my imagination (can't see it all that clearly) or has the original bonnet/hood 'Z' emblem been replaced with a 'Datsun' emblem from an Export market car?

The 'carpet discussion' developed in the comments section of the Bring-a-Trailer auction for the car which is the topic of this thread: https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1970-datsun-240z-43/ You'll need to scroll through the comments to see the 'carpet discussion' develop, but if you really want to go in-depth I recommend you search our own forum here for far better reference material.

The original paint/non-original paint thing started to get silly, and the pushing for a paint thickness meter examination started to look like bullying from at least two people who have an interest in prices going up. Surely if anyone wants to verify the paint they should go and see the car in person and make their own decision, and that would be their advantage over others in the auction format? I'm still not sure how these BaT auctions can be classified? I've always considered auctions as a format akin to a game of poker, where serious buyers don't want to show their hand until the last moment and the 'game' was to get something for less than you think it is truly worth. Instead, BaT seem to foster the idea of getting the price up no matter what, and some of the people making comments on the live auction are actively showing their hand ("I'm out", "I'm intending to win this"). I find it truly bizarre.

Someone's watching...

Here's another - hair edited - version in current use by Nissan Japan which shows more floor detail. Maybe a bit less airbrushing on this one?

Watch out for those acronyms, Kats. 'STD' might be 'Standard', but it's also 'Sexually Transmitted Disease'...! Nice YMO cover! I worked with them some years ago.

That's stuff I learned about right here, courtesy yourself and Mike B. Thank you.

I just wanted to say "Thanks Mr K!" *Mr Soichi Kawazoe.

Cranes!