HS30-H

Gents, Just in case anyone is looking 'in' from 'outside' the clique, maybe we should make it clear that what we are discussing here are the details of the '240Z' emblems that were used on the side quarter panels of the early Export cars ( as opposed to something that had just a letter 'Z' ) and also the details of the 'Datsun' scripts seen on the same cars. The Domestic market cars had different emblems, of course. Two of them were actually a stylised letter 'Z' on a round-shaped background....... :classic:

Kats, Last minute name changes........... ? The 'Fairlady Z' front side and deck lid emblems ( and '432' front side and deck lid emblems ), the round 'Z' quarter panel emblems, round 'Z' bonnet emblems and 'Nissan' deck lid emblems were all finished on time. The special emblems for the 'Fairlady Z Export Model' took a little longer...... ?

Some quotes from the show: Really? Where exactly did this take place?

Babalouie, Yes, it's an original 'LY' crossflow head - but the owner has custom-built an injected and intercooled twin-turbo setup for it. He looks to have perfected this now, but back in 2003 I saw the car at one of the Sagamiko Picnic Land meetings and the installation was still very much a running work-in-progress: http://www.classiczcars.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=7797 http://www.classiczcars.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=7799 http://www.classiczcars.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=7800 http://www.classiczcars.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=7798

Mr Shelby's main aim throughout his career appears to have been selling................. er, Mr Carroll Shelby. Seems like you have well and truly fallen for the Shelby mystique in buying your Sunbeam. It's potent stuff. You don't need my permission, of course. By the way, perhaps you missed this thread: http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=31330 ....where at least one of the people congratulating you on your new purchase here - rather pragmatically - appears to think that all British cars are junk. Perhaps the ones "designed by Carroll Shelby" are not though.....

Long story, but suffice to say that the Nissan UK press office invited the KPGC10 to the Goodwood Press Day - where it was received very well I think, and lined-up next to a new R35 GT-R - but it was not part of their plans for the Festival of Speed itself, where the 'star of the show' as far as business was concerned was the R35. Nissan's press office in Japan are insisting that the R35 is not to be promoted alongside the old Skyline models, despite inheriting the GT-R badge and all the history that goes with that...... It's a curious situation, for sure. With no noise limits for the Press Day, I decided to take off the full stainless system and replace it with a 'worksy' looking twin pipe side-exit with no silencing. Didn't have enough time to shape the ends of the pipes up under the sill properly, but it sounded quite nice. Since then I've shaped the pipes a bit better, but it pivots down at the end under power so I need to make an extra brace for it. Sneaky re-branding of the standard Sanyo Sports Kit by Nissan Prince Nagoya there! How nice to see such an original period-look car too. Love it! I've seen those Yanase tags on old European cars in Japan before, but never on a Skyline. Does the owner know the story behind it? The numbers of C10 Skylines here in England have just taken a massive jump, as a friend has just imported a really nice GC10. That makes it just three here now, as far as I am aware. Not enough. Cheers! Alan T.

Ouch! Congrats on your new car, but sticking a Ford small block into a Sunbeam Alpine is perhaps best described as something a little less than 'designing a car'....... I think a little bit of kudos should remain with the Sunbeam design team and the Rootes Group, whatever the engine and transmission fitted. Any mention of the Tiger's 'Shelby' history should not forget the names of Ken Miles and ( one of the automotive world's great hands-on geniuses ) Phil Remington. But anyway, enjoy!

But Bruce, there's plenty to contradict the quote that this was a "racing engine"........ In fact, I see NO evidence whatsoever that it was ever produced and sold to the public in SA as part of any homologation effort. If it did, what cars used it, and where and when did they race? The thing is, most 'race' engines - even those used in a spec series or a limited class - would be virtually free to use whatever sized valves they wanted to in a production head. There would have been little need for Nissan ( even Nissan SA ) to sell big valve-equipped cars to the general public, and the engine in the car shown is miles away from being anything that could be described as a true 'race' spec, isn't it? I'd be very pleased to be proved wrong ( maybe there was a one-make race series for the R30 Skyline in SA during the mid-Eighties? ) but maybe my idea of a true 'race' engine is quite different to that of others..... Big valves, high compression and a free-flowing head point towards a sporty sub-model intended for road use, but I still think it is a long way from a "racing" engine - sorry! Alan T.

The GT-R was only invited to the 2008 'Press Day' for the Festival of Speed, which was held back in May. It didn't take part in the actual Festival, and even if it had it would almost certainly have been limited to 'display only'......... Still, we had a great time at the Press Day. It was like a mini-Festival on its own. The GT-R even made it onto the short video clip for the Press Day: http://www.goodwood.co.uk/site/content/festivalofspeed/The-Action_Press-Day.aspx ....If you look closely you can get a couple of very short glimpses. Both the Festival of Speed ( July ) and the Revival Meeting ( Sept. ) are worth visiting if you have never been before, and are quite different events to each other. However, I must say that the Festival is becoming increasingly corporate and the Revival might need to reduce the Austin Powers-like activities for fear of becoming a parody instead of a tribute........

Hi Bruce, Nice to see an update to this, but I still can't help thinking that there's a bit of a gap between what was originally being described, and the engine of the eBay car. From the original post: The engine in the South African car hardly looks like a "racing motor", though does it? As an SA-built L-series engine it may well have had different pistons and a different head spec to other contemporary L28s built elsewhere, but I honestly can't imagine it having bigger bearings. In fact, Nissan's 'Sports Option' cranks for the LY crossflow - for example - used narrower rod-bearing journals than standard, to increase crank rigidity and reduce drag. I think there are lost of locally-made / locally-specced Nissans that most of us are not familiar with ( especially the SA-market models ), but 'legend' can tend to make things seem more exotic than reality. I'm afraid I don't know what that letter 'H' in the engine number stands for. I shall have a look to see if it is noted in any of the L-series engine manuals or data that I have, but I suspect that it will be a locally-produced type that I don't have any data on. I'll have a look anyway. Cheers, Alan T.

First of all Carl, you are comparing 'reputations' built through two quite different periods, and with quite different circumstances behind them. The British 'sports' car invasion of the USA market ( along with the German and Italian 'sports' car invasion ) started a good ten to fifteen years before Nissan built the HLS30-U. The products of that post-war period were designed and built to a quite different brief than that of the HLS30-U, and with - arguably - materials and machine tools that were not as up to date as they perhaps should have been. But this is quite understandable when you consider the state of Britain, Germany and Italy so soon after the devastation of war. Even if the designers and engineers did come up with more modern solutions, they would be unlikely to be able to lay hands on the necessary level of materiel, their factories would struggle to make them and their domestic customers would struggle to afford them....... "...ugly Americans..."? Huh? That's your quote I believe, not anybody else's. I believe the cars were sold with servicing schedules and instructions, and if these were not followed ( for whatever reason - including the sheer scale of the territory concerned, and the logistical problems that come with that ) then who is to blame? The likes of Austin-Morris and Standard-Triumph, Porsche and ALFA Romeo were hardly in a position to be setting up chains of official factory-type dealerships across the USA and Canada during that period. Volkswagen pretty much pioneered that 'you take the cars, you take ALL these spares too' philosophy for new car sales combined with a support network in any territory that they moved into. They blazed the trail for what came after. Nissan jumped in on the north American sports car market at a seminal time, when the first Import Sports Car wave had started to wane, when new legislation had started to take a greater influence on auto design, and when industrial disputes had started to take a grip in the UK and Italy. The Japanese sports cars did not kill off the British sports cars; it was a far bigger and more complex scenario than that. It makes a nice triumphalist quote though doesn't it? This is the usual 'Gospel According to St. Katayama' USA-centric nonsense, mixed up with blather and flannel from Nissan's USA marketing campaigns - which people appear to have swallowed whole over the years. It does not stand up to even the most basic scrutiny, but I guess if the same old lies keep getting repeated then quite a few people end up believing it. The fact is that Nissan ( along with just about every other product producing concern in Japan ) were incrementally improving their wares during the post-war period. Their main focus of attention - and this is still true today - was their own domestic market, and the needs, dreams and aspirations of this market were no less important than any export market - no matter how big the potential of that export market. Do you honestly believe that their Export product was superior in design and manufacturing quality in comparison with the own domestic market models? The truth is that Japan was rapidly rebuilding itself post-war and during the Sixties quantum leaps were being made in this respect. Japanese buyers were demanding better, and Japanese engineers and designers were challenging themselves to provide it - whilst keeping a weather-eye on their nearest competitors ( in Nissan's case this was Toyota ). Anybody that thinks it was Export product that was leading the way cannot possibly have a handle on what was happening in the Japanese marketplace during the period concerned. It was true then just as it is today; Nissan's Japanese market dwarfed all of it's individual export markets, and was unavoidably the main focus for the company. To imply that export markets were the sole driver for styling innovation, manufacturing quality and technological improvement is to completely misunderstand what was happening in Japanese society at that time. Alan T.

Ron, That race car interior shot is my photo ( the car is my friend's Works 240ZR replica in Japan ) and I believe I first posted it on this thread here: http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7844 Actually, Yoshihiko Matsuo confirmed to me a couple of years ago that these captive nuts were specifically fitted for the Sports Option 'Safety Bar' / roll hoop mountings, and had nothing to do with the manufacturing process of the bodyshells or the handling of the cars during that process by Nissan Shatai. I have some photos of the Nissan Shatai plant that I will have to scan and put up here. You might find them of interest. Personally speaking, I love the huge body panel presses and other machinery used in such factories. Alan T.

Would you kindly explain the relevance of your post on this thread? Thanks. If these "British" cars are as unreliable as you imply, they'll be needing more than just the one enclosed trailer - don't you think? I don't know about the USA, but here in the Europe the 'Service Barge & Trailer'-inclusive service is quite common with organised regularity / reliability / road-rally type of events, and is intended to give peace of mind to the type of prospective participants who might not use their cars all that often. There is also an insurance / public liability aspect to take into account. Presumably there are very few such events in the USA that S30-series Z cars are eligible to take part in, then? Maybe you need to add: ".....in the USA".? I wonder if one of the weak links in the chain here are actually those USA-based owners? Judging from some of the British-made 50s/60s/70s cars that I have seen being re-imported to the UK over the years, 'regular maintenance' seems to mean something less than what would elsewhere be described as necessary for even basic safety. Suspension, steering and brake componentry in particular seems to be frighteningly neglected. I've seen the same thing on 'daily driver' 240Zs that have been imported from the USA too. Some of those cars looked to have been 'maintained' in Cuba.......... When I was living in Japan, a friend of mine there started importing cars from the USA with a view to selling them. He was aiming at mid-market priced examples ( not the cheapest, for obvious reasons ) and yet he still found that - without fail - the braking, suspension and steering systems on the cars exhibited little sign of having ever been looked after. The general conscensus was that safety inspections for such vehicles must be extremely lax. Wiring was - almost without fail - full of Scotchloks and Sellotaped additions.....

I hope you don't mind' date=' but I took the liberty of copying your photos and adding some notes to them. One of them doesn't seem to make any sense other than to read it as the number '17'. The natural 'flow' of the three strokes seems to support this - but who knows? It could be shorthand for something else..... Another [i']could be read as a number '4' if you rotate it 180 degrees - but the two strokes are not a natural 'flow' for a Japanese writer, and I believe it could be the Katakana symbol 'Ka' ( which means nothing on it's own ), or the Kanji for the word 'Chikara' ( meaning 'power' ). Interesting. The third is even more confusing. The first character is obviously Kanji, but I think it is impossible to read properly ( it's weirdly shaped at the top ). Also, is there part of another unseen character lurking in the shadows on the left there? I see what seems to be something.... The character on the right is the classic Kanji that reads 'Yama' ( meaning 'mountain' ) and this is often seen as part of a name ( a family name, or a place name for instance ). This would seem to point to the writing here being somebody's name - although not completely legible. There's also a curious and fainter pattern underneath it, which I do not recognise as writing at all. Is it some kind of descriptive drawing / diagram? Don't know. What strikes me - after looking at quite a few of these column support mount panels - is that none of the writing seems to be all that natural, and is quite hard to read. It looks 'forced', and it makes me wonder whether the writing was applied when the dash panel was situated in a difficult-to-reach area, or at a difficult angle? Maybe when the dash was actually installed in the body - but ( rather obviously! ) it would have to be before the column support bracket had been attached. Does that make sense? I just get a strong feeling that this writing is unnatural, and writing 'blind' or at an awkward angle might account for that............. I don't know about anybody else, but I've never installed a dash in one of these cars without the column being in-situ and loosely attached to the firewall. Would it make sense for the dash to go in before the column during the initial assembly process?

Hey, I've owned 60s & 70s American cars in the dark and distant past - let alone just driven them! One of them was a 65 Thunderbird coupe. Seemed massive here in London....... Had a drive of a '69 big block Corvette ( a bit squeaky, and steering seemed to be connected to the front wheels using a Panna Cotta as a universal joint ). Great fun. Got a run in a 64 coupe once ( bit of a dream car for me ) and was disappointed by the individual car - although it looked excellent - as I think it needed a thorough going-through on all joints and linkages. Was all quite sloppy. Bit like my 65 MGB-GT, and my TR4a IRS - which was rotten as well as sloppy....... I was thinking Fifties and Sixties cars when I asked the question too. The Corvettes and the original Thunderbirds both seem like leviathans compared with the spartan and lightweight / small eager engine philosophy of the Euro invasion cars that sold so well into the USA in the Fifties and Sixties. Bring those Corvettes and T-Birds from the same era over to Europe and they seem to be in quite a different market sector altogether. Of course the $US used to be quite strong too...... I guess my question kind of answers itself; There really wasn't any cheapish, volume, mainstream, USA-made answer to all those MGs, TRs, ALFAs, 356s/912s/911s etc etc was there? The door was wide open for the HLS30-U, wasn't it?

My pleasure. Hopefully Kats will be along some time in the near future to give a much more educated take on the subject, and put me straight on a few things. But we might be taking these to have a far more literal meaning than they were ever meant to have. Production line boredom could account for anything, and it seems clear that these little snatches of writing were probably not meant to mean anything to anybody other than those that were writing them....... I'm thinking of a particular piece of 'graffiti on my 240ZG; I thought for ages that it might have some significance, but in actual fact it simply reads "Warau". Rough translation: "Ha Ha!" Anybody ever read 'Rivethead' by Ben Hamper? Alan T.

Really? So why did the imports ( and not just the English stuff ) sell so prolifically?

No longer including the likes of that 'howstuffworks.com' article you quoted, one hopes. You have not seen that film clip of him saying "....I designed it..." then? It was a US-made show on the subject of the Z. I don't recall that any other Japanese name other than Katayama's was mentioned. There are clips of the show on the 'net. I must bookmark them for reference. This is not the only example, of course. Well, thanks. I've complained that there's a 'dearth of comprehension ....... on all things Z' generally, but perhaps you can be forgiven for noticing only the bits aimed at "Americans". Especially if your main point of reference is this forum.......... http://www.passionateamerica.com/pictures/american-world-450x315.jpg

By the way, what were the USA domestic-built rivals to all those English 'Sports' cars anyway? Does the Crosley Hot Shot count?

Carl, I think you are getting your engine types confused. The Standard / Triumph side, and the Austin / Morris side, of the ( later ) British Leyland. The Standard / Triumph "tractor" engines were nothing to do with the Austin 'A' and 'B' series that sblake01 was pointing out contributed to the DNA of those early Fifties Nissan units........

No, really - I'm not saying that your perception is wrong per se. I was asking about the origins and roots of that perception. I don't agree with it completely, but that is a curious combination of our different points of reference and the lack of exposure - on my part - to the phenomenon of Katayama being presented as he is ( and was ) in the USA. As I have said many times before, I think the promotion of Katayama as a kind of automotive deity obscures an even bigger story, and causes other interesting and pivotal figures to be completely overlooked. I find it particularly regrettable to see Katayama - on film - saying "....I designed it....". I believe you got that quote here: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/nissan-z-history2.htm A good example of rogue information being used ( innocently ) as reference. I don't know where they got the name "Fumio Yashida" ( sic ) and I suppose they must have meant Akio Yoshida, who was one of the largely unrecognised design staff working on Chief Designer Yoshihiko Matsuo's team. Maybe we should be thankful that they mentioned someone other than Katayama, even if they got the wrong guy and spelled his name incorrectly. This is part of what I'm talking about. I honestly wasn't being cryptic in my questions to you. The post I made in response to the yellow car is a kind of in-joke based on something that Katayama's former secretary has said on film; something that I personally find risible, but beside the point here. I think it is worth looking closely at Katayama and his life story, and sorting out the fact from the fiction. There is absolutely no doubt of his enormous significance ( in many scenarios - not just that of the S30-series Z ) but this was most certainly not a one man show. Alan T.

Zulaytr & Mike B, I have taken the liberty of copying your posted photos, turning them the 'right' way up where necessary, and adding roman alphabet phonetic 'translations' of what I think they say in the hope that it might help us to understand this a little better. Hope that you don't mind. Zulaytr, The Kanji on your dash actually reads as less than 'Spring Time'. In fact, it reads "Haru" - which is indeed 'Spring' as in the season of Spring ( Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter in Japanese would be Haru, Natsu, Aki, Fuyu ) but could easily be part of another word or phrase, or even part of somebody's name......... Unless we saw other examples that identified seasons ( Natsu, Aki & Fuyu ) then I'd hesitate to believe that the Kanji on your dash was reference to a season. If it did, how could that be of use on a production line that was churning thousands of these things out every month? 'Nen' and 'Ne' could easily be two ways of writing the same thing. One is in ( long hand ) Kanji, and one is in ( quicker ) Hiragana, and abbreviated ( ? ). Could they both mean the same thing...... ? Don't know. Finally, 'Kokoro' or 'Shin' ( could be read both ways ) is Kanji, but seems ambiguous. A more formal Kanji character has been roughly scribbled out. Something has possibly been corrected on the component / sub-assembly? A rough translation of 'Kokoro' would be 'heart' ( as in the feeling, rather than the organ ) and a rough translation of 'Shin' ( the other possible reading of this Kanji - although it is actually meaningless when used on it's own ) could also be 'Heart', the abstract feeling rather than the thing. It is not the correct Kanji for the similar-sounding 'Shin' meaning 'new' - which could have indicated a shortened form of a person's name.......... And that's what I have wondered about these in the past; Whether they were scribbles signifying the identity of the person who completed them or 'signed them off' - at whatever stage of the process ( could even be just the sheetmetal frame part......... ). Don't know. Some of them don't seem to fit in as possible names or even nicknames. Interesting that they are situated in a place that is not covered by the vinyl, but is covered by the steering column when the dash is fitted in the car. That must be a clue as to what stage in the manufacturing process these graffitoes were applied, and meant to be seen......... Alan T.

Ah yes. I can relate to that! That - of course! - is the one that Yutaka Katayama and his pal Pinin Farina dreamed up over lunch one day. Farina drew it on the back of a napkin, and they sent the napkin over to Japan. And hey presto. There it was. :classic:

Poindexter, No, no - not a matter of language. Please don't misunderstand. I'm seeking to understand your obvious high regard for Mr Yutaka Katayama ( unless you actually mean Mr Kawazoe? ) The above already answers some of my questions. Thank you! So you see Yutaka Katayama as "..... the driving force....", but can I be so bold as to ask if this is something you understood / believed implicitly, or is it because of other factors - such as TV commercials, magazine coverage etc etc? I see a lot of what I ( personally speaking, as an Englishman ) see as something akin to hero-worship in the early Z "Community" ( whatever we think that is! ) and sometimes I honestly find it slightly baffling. I definitely feel like the odd one out when conversing on the subject with USA-based enthusiasts, and I find the subject very interesting. Cheers, Alan T.

Sorry to digress from the thread subject, but can I ask you why? I ask in all seriousness, and seek to understand. No, really. Alan T.