HS30-H

As a 'Super Moderator' ( whatever that is ), you could have done with posting that comment at least 24 hours before you did. Maybe your 'comedy timing' is a bit off........?

Kats, Please excuse me for cropping and highlighting a section of the document from Nissan Shatai concerning the Kojyo Shisaku and Seisan Shisaku body numbers etc, but I noticed something quite interesting...... 'Kojyo Shisaku No.02' ( HLS30-00001 ) is noted as being 'HL270' type. Obviously '270' is that internal project tag for the S30-series Zs, and we know that 'H' usually referred to a large engine capacity variant ( L24 in this case ), whilst 'L' referred to Left Hand Drive. Look down to 'Ichiji Seishi No.1' ( HLS30-00002 ) and we see that it is noted as being 'HL270U' type. I believe that the 'U' letter was consistently used ( even from early Bluebird days ) to denote North American market destination when paired with the 'L' prefix for LHD ( as opposed to the 'U' suffix used on certain RHD Export markets ). Therefore I believe HLS30-00001 and HLS30-00002 can be seen to be different market variants to eachother. I believe HLS30-00001 may very well have been a 'Euro' market specification car, and I personally believe that it might have ended up at Nissan's competition department at Oppama, where it was prepared as a test car for the Rally campaign - being equipped with various sensors and recording equipment to download data whilst being driven on rally conditions. It is a strong candidate to be the car tested by Rauno Aaltonen in January 1970 on the roads where the Monte Carlo Rallye had taken place. There is evidence to show that this car was a very early chassis number, and in order to be modified and equipped for the testing, and then shipped to the south of France in time for the testing commencing mid-January, it would have to have been so. What do you think Kats? Alan T.

What's wrong with the term "Original Style"? The factory headlamp covers were designed specifically for the S30-series Z by the team that designed the whole car, and were part of the design from quite an early stage. They were offered as an extra-cost option right from the very first sales to the general public. If that doesn't qualify the term "Original" then I don't know what does. Citing the rather obvious Jaguar E-Type is perhaps lacking something in imagination. The ridge on the early E-Type's headlamp covers makes them look quite different to those on the Z, and they look far closer to the type of headlamp trim ring seen on Italian-styled bodies made for the likes of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Abarth, Aston Martin and many others by PininFarina, Zagato, Drogo, Vignale, Michelotti et al. The team at Nissan would have been influenced by these designs just as much - if not more - than the E-Type. In fact the headlamp covers were an extra-cost optional extra, and were not included even in the 'Custom Pack' for the Z-L models. However, the kind of people paying the extra for the Z-L and 432 models were more likely to have specified the headlamp covers than those who plumped for the cheaper 'Std' model S30-S. The HS30-H Fairlady 240ZG was the only model to have it's headlamp covers as non-option standard equipment.

"Holier than thou"? You really have no idea......... So, who are these people that have "more seniority" and "greater bona fides"? As far as I'm aware, this forum has an 'Owner', some 'Moderators' ( at least one of them 'Super' ) and a bunch of 'Members'. Any seniority or bona fides amongst those 'Members' will be in your head. You surely won't be surprised to hear that I might not agree with you. "Colonials"? Really, what are you talking about? This is just garbage. It's in your head, my friend. You are making a BIG mistake. Don't lay that nonsense on me. As for this "lording" and "superior knowledge" then I honestly can't think of anything to tell you my friend. You just do not know anything about me. You might like to reflect on the fact that these are just words on a page, and that I come from a culture which is quite different to yours. You can't possibly have made an accurate judgement of my character or intentions without conversing directly with me - and you have not done that. You can also have no idea of what goes on behind a lot of the banter on this forum. You would be well advised to form your opinions about people after you know a little bit more about what has gone on in the past. As for my first post on this thread, you have COMPLETELY mis-read my intentions. I could not have been more tongue-in-cheek had I tried. The guys here were making comments that made my post an inevitable punchline to their gag. I was being light-heartedly sarcastic, if not even a little self-deprecating. If it went over your head then it can only be because you don't know me - or them - or what we are all talking about - well enough yet. "We"? Yes, you are speaking for people without their express permission. YOUR first post on this thread was nothing to do with the thread's subject, was it? So who are you speaking for now? Any "we" on this forum can only mean all of us. That includes me. Now, if you really don't like me or what I write, and you don't think you are going to change your opinion of me, then you have the luxury of being able to turn me OFF. Just look at your personal options, and put me on your 'Ignore' list. It's that simple. Alan T.

Well, what does that mean? If you have something to say, then say it. You've only been a member of this forum for a matter of a few months, so if I have managed to hurt your feelings during that time it should be a simple matter to pin down when and how, shouldn't it?

"......chose to convey it" when? Show me the thread and post, please.

Here's the thread you need to look at again. Particularly pages 4 & 5:http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7801

Nice to see the beginnings of a little self-policing going on. The message must be getting through......

Carl, You need to go back to the thread that Kats started on the subject of the data he obtained from Nissan Shatai. Then you will ( hopefully ) see why the manufacturing dates of the earliest numbered HS30 bodies would tell us something about the body numbers of the North American test cars.

To clarify - the bumpers with rubber edging were standard equipment on 'Luxury' / 'DX' models in Japan, and the plain non-rubbered bumpers were standard on the 'Standard' / 'DS' models. Over-riders were an extra-cost catalogue option in the Japanese market.

The 'PS30-SB' Fairlady Z432-R had the same engine as the 'PS30' Fairlady Z432. It was the 'S20' engine, which was derived from the Nissan 'GR8' and the earlier Prince 'GR8' race engines. The 'S20' was a two litre, 24-valve, twin-cam, crossflow six cylinder design, equipped with a six-branch stainless steel tubular exhaust manifold and triple 40PHH Mikuni-Solex side-draught carburettors. The 'S20' engine was first fitted to the 'PGC10' model Skyline GT-R, which debuted in early 1969. In standard production trim the S20 was rated at 160ps ( around 158bhp ). Use the SEARCH function on this site and you will come up with plenty of info and pics of these engines and the cars they were fitted to. WE have discussed them many times before. Have fun

Ron, I think the really clever marketing / product identity bit is that stylised letter 'Z'....... I'm not talking about the spoken "Zee" or "Zed", or even "Zet-to" - but just what that graphic device looks like. A small stroke of genius in car branding, without wishing to overstate it. 'Fairlady' I could live without. Doesn't really move me one way or another, but some people seem to have an almost pathological antipathy towards it - which, inverted, can turn it into a badge of honour I suppose. I even had one guy look at my ZG at a show and tell me that he thought 'Fairlady' sounded "gay". Looks like Katayama thought so too? '240' - for which most of us say "two forty" - doesn't seem all that clever to me. As a marker of engine capacity it seems somewhat obscure. Is that two hundred and forty Decilitres? I guess '2400' would not have scanned so well. It kind of lays a trap for subsequent models or updates, in that expectations are that numbers will rise as time goes on - which may not always be feasible or necessary. Personally, when thinking of model and series, I think we end up with too many numbers anyway. No no no, the point is that my project car ( mid-1970 'S30' Fairlady Z-L becoming replica 'PS30-SB' Fairlady Z432-R ) always did have the early Domestic market solid round 'Z' pillar emblems. I didn't need to do any re-drilling. My project car came to me missing many items, and the early Domestic pillar emblems are not all that easy to find these days - hence the time it took to find them. However, they pop straight into the same two mounting holes on each side that the early Export '240Z' emblem pushes into. My point being that the Domestic and Export emblems are interchangeable, because the mounting holes and their positions are the same. The pins are the same distance apart side-to-side ( allowing you to put them on the wrong side ) but the emblems themselves are - I believe - not completely symmetrical. Hence the LH and RH markings and part numbers.

Yes, although not consistently. There's such a lot of different Japanese literature covering that late '69 / early '70 period, and only some of it uses the 'Sport' or 'Sports' tag after the 'Fairlady Z' name...... For example - and perhaps somewhat curiously - the JAF/FIA homologation papers for the 'S30' & 'S30-S' models ( a different homologation to the 'PS30' & 'PS30-SB', and to the 'H(L)S30' ) describe the name of the car as 'Datsun Sports Z S30', and manufacturer as 'Nissan'. You can see the word 'Sport' tagged onto the cars in the literature and coverage, but it does not seem to be applied as though it is much more than a description of the sector it might fit into........ There was a prototype 'SPORTS' emblem that didn't(?) make it onto production Export models, wasn't there? Seen in that nice Feb.'70 issue of Car Graphic magazine:

Ron, I've stuck a pair of these on my project car now - so it's a bit late to start taking detail photos of them ( wish I had now ). Yes they are handed left and right, but the difference is very subtle. I know that there is a difference in the mounting pin positioning, but I also recall ( but don't quote me on this ) that there is a slight difference in thickness between the forward-facing parts and rearward-facing parts on both sides. There's only one way for the 'Z' logo to be up, but I've seen them mounted upside down on a few cars - which is certainly the owner's mistake. Unless anyone else has some handy I shall have to take them off my car to satisfy my curiosity now. They are different part numbers for left and right. Maybe I'm biased, but the early Domestic 'Z' pillar emblems seem far more suited to the car than the '240Z' pillar emblems seen on the Export cars. No - I would NOT see any connection to the 'FairladyZ' name seen elsewhere on the Domestic cars and I think you are quite right to wonder how Katayama ( or anyone else ) could have objected to them. You could say the same thing about the 'Z' bonnet ( hood ) emblem of the Domestic cars too; I think it looks infinitely more suited to a sports / GT car than the maker's brand ( whether Nissan or Datsun ). A conscious effort at market version division by Katayama ( and whoever else )? Quite certainly possible. I'm also thinking of the 'NISSAN' logo emblem seen on the left side of the tailgate ( or spoiler, where fitted ) on Domestic cars, and also the 'Fairlady Z' glovebox lid emblem which was seen as 'Datsun 240Z' on Export models........ I'm also wondering what was the hold up with the 'Datsun' script emblems for the tailgate on the Export cars? Surely the use of the 'Datsun' name would have been settled well in advance of launch? Is this indicative of a last-minute swap from some other emblem or positioning? Wouldn't only be the advertising guys that would be held up by all this either. I'm thinking of all the literature that went along with the Export cars ( owners manuals, workshop manuals, servicing data etc etc ) needing to be finalised before printing - although it seems to have been achieved by late 1969.........

Mike ( I think you know this Chris ), That's the post-October '71 'Fairlady' script emblem ( part no. 63805-E8725 ) that was introduced for the Domestic market L24-engined models ( Fairlady 240Z, Fairlady 240Z-L & Fairlady 240ZG ), and was placed before the '240Z' emblem to make a 'Fairlady 240Z' reading pair. This is the type that is fitted to my 240ZG. I don't think they fit into any conversation regarding truly early S30-series Z emblems....... Chris, you will remember the gent that sold it to you told you that it had come from a particular 'works' 240Z rally car. This is - of course - impossible. First of all, it is from the wrong year for that particular car and secondly we know what emblems that car was wearing when it first arrived in the UK. Did I mention that he's most definitely not from London....... :knockedou

Ron, I have a lot of catching up to do, as you have posed a lot of questions since I last logged on. Please excuse me chopping up your posts into quotes in order to answer the points you have made. First of all, I'm trying to take the factory line - and I won't ( can't! ) single out the North American market sector on this emblems subject when the factory were covering USA/Canada under their 'Export model' umbrella. I also believe that the '240Z' emblems - in all shapes and forms - were never intended exclusively for the North American market, even though that's pretty much all we ever hear about them. I honestly don't know what the timeline was in respect to these "last minute name changes", but I have the impression that most of the vernacular we hear and read about Katayama's rejection of the 'Fairlady' name for the S30-series is only one side of the story, and apocryphal into the bargain. We can see that emblems saying '240Z' were being placed on prototypes as far back as 1968 - in which case you'd think that a finalised production design for such an emblem could easily have been finished before hundreds of cars started roling down the line at Nissan Shatai in October, November and December of 1969 ( and later? ). What does this signify? Surely only that the details of the '240Z' emblem design were not finalised in time, but why? My guess is that there must have still been some kind of indecision going on, as I can't imagine any other scenario........ As for the details of that 'Z' in the Export '240Z' emblems - as far as I understand it, what we are calling the 'solid chrome Z' and 'non-recessed' emblems were only prototypes, and were never supposed to have made it onto finished cars sold to the general public. So I don't believe that this was indecision based around which version of the 'Z' ( 'solid chrome' or 'white filled' ) should be used on the '240Z' emblem. I think Kats has settled that point with Matsuo san ( see below ). When you wrote that you saw the '240Z' pillar emblem as the "predominant plan", my immediate reaction was that it clearly wasn't! I'd say that the dominant plan - as far as most of the design and engineering of the emblems was concerned - was centred around the Domestic market models. We don't see any last minute changes to their emblems or model naming, and they appear to have been settled quite early. Certainly well in time for volume production of over 1000 cars before the end of 1969........ I see several different designs of pillar emblems on the clays and prototypes, and I'd love to know which was the favourite up until this last minute change we are talking about. Was it the 'Nissan' logoed round emblem ( surely not for Export models? ), was it the letter 'Z'-signifying nautical signal flag design that Chris is calling the 'Zulu' flag, or perhaps the shield shaped emblem that we can barely make out on some of the clays? Don't know. I believe Matsuo san has confirmed this in his discussions with Kats. Kats will - I think - have been talking to him specifically about the earliest '240Z' emblems and the story surrounding them, and I wonder whether Matsuo san was focusing on just that aspect of the story - when the wider topic of all the emblems might have given a fuller answer? Now I want to ask him some questions from a different angle....... This is my point. The Export model could have been called anything, but as far as Nissan as a corporate entity were concerned that anything - and for all the different Export territories they sold cars into - was always going to be an 'Export Model' of their 'Fairlady Z'. This happened with pretty much all of their different models and series of cars and trucks too. I think it's a quite natural viewpoint. It's not a premeditated political stance intended to make anybody think of a commercial product in a certain way, or something written by advertising copywriters as part of a sales campaign.

In what way? The emblem mounting holes were in the panels before they were painted. When you bought a new panel, it came with the 'universal' emblem mounting holes already in it. Exception would be - in the domestic market - when you ordered a car with the rear spoiler option. Then the car was supplied without the pre-drilled emblem holes in the tailgate. Add a spoiler later and you'd have emblem mounting holes to fill....... As far as Nissan were concerned, the '240Z' was the 'Fairlady Z Export Model'.

Tokyo Auto Show opened its doors to the general public on 24th October 1969. There was a 'press preview' of the cars on Nissan premises in Ginza, Tokyo on 18th October.

Kats, I'm thinking that the name of the Export model was not the main problem here, as we can see that the '240Z' name was already being attached to one of the LHD Export pre-production / prototype cars in late 1968~early 1969....... Matsuo and his team would be needing to make sure that all the different Domestic and Export emblems would fit into the same holes on the bodies ( for obvious logistical reasons relating to production ) so I can imagine that factor needed to be decided quite early(?). Please see the attached pictures, which came from the Miki Press 'Fairlady Z Story' book. It is obvious from the photos that the '240Z' and 'Datsun' names had been thought of already, but the quarter panel emblem shape is not yet finalised ( from the fake 'vent', and the '240Z' script lacking it's round centre backing...... ). We can't see the tailgate 'Datsun' italic script. I think we still have not really got to the bottom of this story that we have all heard, where Katayama is said to have protested at the 'Fairlady' part of the car's name. Exactly when and how this happened still seems unclear, and I have certainly never believed the story that Katayama was personally taking 'Fairlady' emblems off of S30-series cars as they arrived in the USA. That may have been possible with some SP/SR models, but I can't believe it happened on the S30. Anyone care to comment on that? Alan T.

The close-ups were an attempt to focus on the 'Nissan' logo. Failed. I think Matsuo san gives the same photos to different people and tells them they have an 'exclusive'........ Do you want to expand on the Z signal flag emblem seen on the red Targa prototype? Do you reckon it was on the cards to actually be used....? To go back to Kats' original question, I still think the big point is that they were working on certain emblems right down to the wire, when they should have had plenty of time to finalise them. That points - I think - to last minute changes. We already know that the '240' part of '240Z' was something that came quite late, don't we? I think the rear hatch / deck lid 'Datsun' emblem was a last-minute change too - yes?

Hi Mike, A few very early production HLS30s were sent to Europe ( arriving in Belgium and Holland ) for road testing and evaluation. One of them took part in the 1970 Geneva motor show. More than one of them ( at least two, and maybe more ) became test mules for the European rally program. When talking about early production '240Zs' it is also worth remembering the HS30s ( ie - RHD ) that we know Nissan made amongst the very first pre-production and production cars. Cheers, Alan T.

Further to what Chris was talking about, 'NISSAN' logo quarter / pillar emblems, on a clay and on a prototype or pre-production S30:

A slander on proud Londoners! If it's the fellow I'm thinking of, he certainly wasn't from London. From either the houses of York or Lancaster, as I remember........ To clarify, this emblem was not applied only to the pre vented-quarter 432 & 432R, but to the Fairlady Z and Fairlady Z-L models too. They were dropped when the pillars became vented, and the tailgates became sealed. Yes, I think you are right about the 'Nissan' emblem. You can see that on some of the other clay/prototype photos, I believe. I'm motivated to go and have a look now. I seem to remember it from the high-res. clay photos that Matsuo san gave me in London (?). Those hubcaps are - of course - C10-series Skyline hubcaps with 'D' emblems added onto the centres. Keeping the bean-counters happy, no doubt! Cheers, Alan T.

Mike, With respect, maybe you are discussing the emblems on the "early US 240Z model", but Nissan would - perhaps more accurately, and certainly more diplomatically - call them the 'early Export model emblems". I wouldn't like to bet that all such emblems ended up being sent to the USA, any more than I would bet that all of the "first 500" HLS30s were HLS30Us...... Alan T.

Yes. I was trying to think of a way to define 'rare' in this instance, but it is difficult to come up with a meaningful definition. A personal count of known running examples struggles to get into double figures, as does the count of personally known extant LY heads ( whether complete or not..... ). So yes. If we were talking about a steak, it would be a case of "knock off the horns, wipe it's arse, and put it on a plate" rare........