HS30-H

Nor have the comments in posts 7 & 11, which mine were in reply to. If you want to police your thread to the extent that any slightly O/T comments are banned then I wish you luck, and you're going to need it. Potatoes usually come out of the ground with a bit of mud too, but it doesn't mean you have to eat it....

Prince ( reportedly ) used some MB patents in the valvetrain of their G7 engine, but Nissan's L20 six was designed long before the forced merger between Prince and Nissan, and I have never seen any evidence that the MB patented details ( reportedly ) used by Prince were also used - or 'inherited' - by Nissan. I think the stories are rooted in perceived visual similarities and the gossip arising from that. I for one have never seen any hard evidence - have you? As for licensing, that's everywhere. The S30 was no different to most other cars in using componentry that was licensed from the patent holders ( Girling, Dunlop, Borg Warner, Porsche etc etc ) and the Hitachi licensing of the SU carb design is one of these. But, so what? You can point to the Solex carb on the MB engine you pictured and say the same thing...

No it isn't. Unless you believe that DNA can be passed on through simply looking at something. If that's the case, then I'm the bastard son of Cary Grant because my mum saw all his movies....

It's a Matra-Simca Bagheera.

Anybody else got the MIKI Press title 'SEVEN KEY PEOPLE IN THE HISTORY OF DATSUN ( The Men Behind The Foundation & Development Of The Brand )', written by Kenji Shimokaze and Yutaka Katayama? The Magnificent Seven as chosen by the authors are: 1. Masujiro HASHIMOTO 2. Kenjiro DEN 3. Rokuro AOYAMA 4. Meitaro TAKEUCHI 5. Yoshisuke AYUKAWA 6. William R. GORHAM 7. Yutaka KATAYAMA Nice to see that modesty is alive and well...... ISBN 978-4-89522-545-8 if you're interested.

There. Fixed that for you.

Yes, FMVSS affected the home market models as well as those sold as Exports to the United States. But we must not forget ( it'll be news to some ) that Japanese SAE and JIS regulation, as well as ECE regulation, would have an effect on all 'our' cars too. I'd like to see it being taken into account when such matters are discussed. Neither. I think all were designed & engineered pretty much at the same time. Or at least as at the same time enough as to be classed as contemporary designs / engineering / development. If anyone wants to single out any arbitrary point in the models' gestation we could easily wind the clock back to the point in the design process where we had the child of a Studebaker Avanti that had been 'frightened by' an anteater, and was powered by a four cylinder engine... As long as we both agree that Design Concession affected the spec of all model variants then I think we are both reading from the same page. My worry - as I've been implying all along - is that this is not an accepted concensus. Don't underestimate the number and power of the '240Z Creationists'.

I asked you first. Politely, I think. You make great point of stressing that you are an engineer, so I wanted to hear your professional opinion of that aspect to the design / engineering. That's a good point, but different markets / variants got different struts / 'legs'. Different strut tube lengths, different spring mount heights, even different front spindle angles to give different stock camber. It would appear that such things were indeed taken into account and engineered accordingly. That's chassis and suspension geometry, but what about unibody structure? Do you still want to insist that the lowest spring & damper rates might have had just as much implication on the unibody / monocoque / bodyshell structure design as the highest? I would say that seems unlikely to me. I know you're going to tell me that we should look at all factors dynamically affecting others ( and that's not so different to my 'Family of models' viewpoint ) but how about the structure of just the 'shell? Tiresome? Welcome to my world. I can point you to a frequently-recommended and influential website that insists on the "American Car..." stuff. The idea that the USA market's perceived needs completely dominated the S30-series Z's design and engineering to the exclusion of all other concerns is very real and often cited ( and people swallow it whole without question ). This is a quite different message to you stating your belief that "....it's not inconceivable that some US market requirements drove compromise in the design and may have had a higher ranking than a similar requirement for another market. And vise versa." isn't it? For the record, I agree with you. But the "American Car..." believers don't. The cars themselves tell us the truth. It's there for all to see.

Autocar magazine were repeating the figures from a press release ( unless you think they took the engine out of that car and dynoed it? ). The figures are indeed the same as those quoted for the first North American market cars ( the same - optimistic - SAE figures ) and yet the UK market cars and North American market cars had differences in engine specs. The Autocar test car was an HS30-U model ( we even know what its chassis number was ) and would not have had the same power and torque figures as a contemporary HLS30-U model. I can expand on this if you need me to. That would be from the same press release, and is not surprising because it is true. Many such cars were "aimed primarily at the US market" too. How about the XK120, XK140, XK150, XKSS, E-Type / XKE Jaguars, MG T-series, MGA, MGB, MGC, numerous Triumphs and Austin Healeys, not to mention various Porsches, Ferraris, VWs and who knows what else. All aimed squarely at the US market in terms of sales. They all sold more in the USA than they did in the UK, but did anyone ever try to tell you that they were made / designed "for" the USA? Did anyone ever say that they were "American Cars, Made In England"? Have you not noticed that we've been discussing different spring & damper rates, differences in ARBs, differences in steering rack ratio et al in this thread? I should imagine one of the reasons that Autocar came to different conclusions than Road and Track was the plain and simple fact that the cars were different. That Autocar test HS30-U had higher spring and damper rates, different ARBs, a 'faster' ( heavier ) steering rack ratio and even different pedal rates in comparison to the R&T test HLS30-U. Different dynamics, different character. I took your comments as snarky. You didn't seem to take into account that Nissan had only entered the UK market a couple of years earlier ( as a concession ) and was still establishing itself with franchised dealerships. They faced higher shipping costs, high import duties and a much more competitive market for the kind of cars they were trying to sell here. It would be like saying that Nissan only sold a couple of thousand cars in the USA during 1963. An accurate snapshot, but not really telling us all that much more than that. So what was the point you were making when you wrote "hold your heart"? The HLS30-U was indeed "designed with the American market as a major target". Not the whole story though, is it? So was the Austin A90 Atlantic, and look what happened to that. I think the Japanese understood the importance of the World market, and for Nissan that included the single most important market to them; Japan. For sure the "American" market was - still is - important, but looking longer term Nissan's establishment of factories all over the world seems much more important. Your comment about "The English" makes me smile, as I think you'd have a hard time to find many British owned companies making British designed and made cars on our British roads at all these days. The reasons for that are a little bit more complex than the people who want to tell us that the '240Z' destroyed the British car makers would appear to understand, and certainly much more complex than a matter of understanding "the importance of the American car market".

I think I have got my facts straight. You were - at the very least - discouraging me from bringing it up ( you just did it again ) when I think it is an important aspect to the discussion. If you don't believe me, then I'd suggest you look a little more closely at posts above this one. People still don't seem to understand the difference between targetting sales at a certain market and creating a whole car specifically for a certain market. They are not the same thing. It would be nice if you would ask these same questions to the "American Car, Made In Japan" / "Made For The USA" ( oops, I did it again... ) proponents. If the "US market" had "unique performance targets" as you suggest it might, then what were they and how did they affect the design and engineering of the model range as a whole? We know at least what some of them were, but what - speaking as an engineer - do you think might have had to have been done which is identifiably "US market" specific? Or would that too be just guesswork? I think I'm being diplomatic. The "equal consideration" thing is not a one way street. Those who want to tell us that one variant, one market version dominated the design and engineering to the level that all others were "irrelevant" automatically deny equal consideration. Going back to the question of suspension, it seems to me that you'd need to engineer the structure of a unibody to cater for all the spring & damper rates that would be used on it, and I can't see what is wrong with saying that lower, softer maximum rates would NOT have the same implications on 'shell design as higher rates would. You can call that guesswork, but it seems closer to common sense to me. We are always going to be chasing our tails with this. As I've said before, I support your belief in the importance of the engineers' role in all this and it's nice to see somebody thinking of them rather than blindly quoting the advertising boys. However, without us actually having several different market versions - all built around the same period - in front of us, and being able to go all over them and compare notes, there's no way we will get very far. Question: Have you actually seen an RHD market version stripped down to component form? I'm wondering whether you have.

No, I think I explained it and justified my quoting it. If you choose to ignore that ( I remember you becoming a little sniffy about it in a previous thread too ) then it's up to you, but don't tell me what I can or can't bring up in this discussion. This is a forum, not a private meeting room. Hang on, it was you that started all this "easy" and "difficult" stuff in the first place. I'm saying that if you look at it as one big project ( all variants made up to the end of 1969 designed together in that project ) then all variants would theoretically have been given equal consideration. I don't know how you would decide that one was "more difficult" than another, or "more easy" than another? The only scenario where I can envisage that being a problem is if one particular variant / configuration / market model was dominant ( or designed / engineered first ) and the others had to be compromised to suit. That is why I brought up the "Made For The USA" type quotes, as their proponents would appear to be telling us that there was indeed one dominant variant, and that all others were an afterthought ( therefore, and I quote, "irrelevant" ). We've seen you dismissing the design and engineering of the cars for both RHD and LHD, and L20A, S20 & L24 engines as 'easy' in a previous thread here ( didn't you say it was just a matter of a few extra holes here and there? ) but I happen to think it was a little bit mroe involved than that. Such comments usually come from people who have only seen one type of variant, in my experience. Exactly. And in the case of suspension and its effect / interaction with unibody rigidity, structural stress analysis and everything that goes with that, the engineers would make sure that they designed the basic structure of the body to cope with the springing and damping of all variants ( presumably taking into account the highest rates that would be offered - Option as well as stock ). Hence for example a variant sold with soft springing and damping would fall within the parameters set by that with the higher rates, but both would be given equal consideration in the project as a whole. Still interested to see Jetaway follow up on his contribution. If he has a follow up that is....

"Irrelevant". Now where have I heard that before...? I didn't say you said it, but it gets said, written and repeated often enough to be a factor. I think it's relevant to this discussion because it implies - very strongly - that the specifications / needs / perceived requirements of the USA market completely dominated all others. This is quite simply not the case, and the cars themselves show that very clearly. I don't get where you're going with this. You seem to be going round in circles. Just as a reminder, here's what you wrote earlier: So, you were saying that the "US market version" might have been "....more difficult to engineer", right? Since the first variants of the S30-series ( S30, S30-S, PS30, PS30-SB, HS30, HLS30 ) were all designed, engineered and produced at the same time, I find it hard to see the "US market version" as being any more difficult or "easy" to engineer than all the others. The engineers would have to take into account the fact that differences to one variant would possibly affect another. That's why you would see - for example - anti roll bar link mount holes in the transverse links / rear wishbones of the "US market version" when it didn't actually have a rear anti roll bar.....

The thing is, the real story is that the S30-series Z was conceived, styled, designed and yes, engineered to cater for all the perceived markets that it would be sold in, and for all of the variants and sub-variants that were coming off the production line. There's design concession and engineering concession in all of them. There are details, even things as small as drilled holes, that are present on your car simply because they were necessary on my car, and vice versa. That's my primary objection to all this "An American Car..." yak. The cars themselves contradict that. Hence I don't see why you would ask if a "US market version" might be "more difficult to engineer". They were all designed and engineered together.

Did you? Why? And.....? I think my heart is still beating, and nobody is going to hold the front page. Was it a surprise for you then?

OK, I understand that "dumbed down" might raise your hackles, but think of it as a Newtonian equal and opposite reaction to all that "An American Car, Made In Japan" and "Made For The USA" flannel that gets plenty of airtime. Just look past it. I'm not sure how, or why a "US market" ( ahem, North American market...... ) version might have been "more difficult to engineer" ( than what? ), so I'm all ears....

So you honestly think that an engineer specified ( and, er, engineered it... ) before the policy to include a clock had been made? What's that, some kind of Immaculate Conception? I understand - and support - your championing of engineers and engineering, but even engineers have to accept that - in the case of the S30-series Z - they were working to a brief, a concept, a project dreamed up in the first instance by the white collared guys and then worked up into something bigger. The idea always has to come first. Of course the planners, designers and stylists need to have a solid grounding in engineering ( otherwise they'd design things that either could not be made, or would not work ) and there can be some crossover in roles, but when all is said and done the engineers don't say "I know, let's stick a clock here...." do they?

You might need to take another stab at explaining that to me. My example of the clock fitment / non fitment can be demonstrated with the early publicity for the HLS30-U model, which showed a blanking plate in the clock aperture. That blanking plate already existed because the base-level S30-S 'Fairlady Z' and the super lightweight PS30-SB 'Fairlady Z432-R' did not have a clock, but the other models in the Japanese lineup - as well as other Export models - did. Granted there was an engineering solution involved ( clock, or no clock ) but the concept came first. Before the engineering. In the case of the HLS30-U, first it seemed that it would not have a clock, but then - in practice - it did. That must have been a business decision of some sort. That decision seems to have been made after the engineering, but the engineering would not have taken place without concept, planning and strategy coming first.

OK, I understand your viewpoint. But my point is that the basic design of the chassis incorporates the possibility of several different mechanical layouts and a myriad of different details. Most of the parts we are talking about already existed and the chassis was ready to take them. For example, it was a business decision to decide whether to supply certain markets with a clock as standard equipment, even though the aperture, mounting and wiring for a clock, as well as the clock itself, already existed. I don't see that as a purely engineering decision, as the engineering had already been done.

Well, I'm with you on the spec-for-price point ( the North American sales price was set artificially low, especially considering the costs of logistics and infrastructure backing it up ) but soft springing and damping - with soft / no anti roll bars - and slower steering rack ratios are more to do with driving feel than cost. Those North American market cars had been specced according to some kind of expectation that the North American market wanted a particular type of driving character. Something more biased towards a sedan with a pretty body than what constituted the essence of a Sports / GT at that time. I don't agree with your points about the L24 and the four-speed. The L24 offered in other Export markets certainly didn't lack any torque in comparison ( there's the dirty little secret that the North American L24s actually had less power and response too.... ), and the 5-speed O/D with 3.9 diff ratio was all about giving the car a sportier feel when going up and down through the gears. The wide ratio 4-speed D/D with 3.3 diff gives a completely different driving experience to the close ratio 5-speed O/D with 3.9 diff in first, second, third and fourth - let lone fifth. That too is all about driving experience, driving character, personality. Yes they sold like hot cakes in North America so *maybe* they got that 'right', but I would have thought a more sporty North American market sub variant ( something along the lines of Car and Driver magazine's 'Omega Z' of 1971 ) would have been a great halo model to sell alongside the 'cooking' model, a year or so after initial launch. It certainly would not have done any harm.....

In what way? Many of the parts / specs that people here are lamenting the lack of on the north American market cars did already exist, and were either fitted as standard equipment in other markets or as readily available options. I'm saying that the business side's decisions nixed the fitment / use of parts that had already been designed, engineered and fitted for other markets. Another one! What's the roadster got to do with it? The FS5C71-A ( and the FS5C71-B that followed it ) was standard equipment in all S30-series Z markets except the north American market.....

Are you still thinking only of your local market? That's my point made for me. When I'm talking about the family, I'm talking about a family that starts right from the beginning of production and sales in ( theoretically if not in practice ) late 1969. That family - through concept, design, engineering, production and finally sales ( let's say 'sales' in early 1970, to keep it real for all territories ) - featured no less than seven distinct domestic and export model variants. Looks like it was purely a business decision. Just sell a Margherita pizza with effectively no choice of extra toppings, and keep production, supply and sales for export markets simple. If you want extra cheese or anchovy, go to the deli down the road and get it yourself.

As has been pointed out already, most of the points being put forward were taken into account with the models and sub variants produced for the Japanese market. More power, more ( sporty ) gearing, 'better' handling and sharper steering, more showroom options and race/sports options, multi-position seating ( with less dish on the steering wheel to compensate ) and all manner of other considerations. Rather than talk to the design and engineering team, I think I'd rather talk to the press and publicity department and try to get them to be more forceful in pushing the truth of the background design / styling story, the engineering story and the fact - still largely ignored ( witness this thread ) - that this was a range of cars, a family of models, as designed, at launch and all through production. People still don't seem to get it.

And gtom, are you trying to set a record for the highest number of edited posts.....?

Can only speak for myself and say that I'm certainly not as god as some people, but I'm always trying to be godder....

Anyway, I think this thread is a can of worms that doesn't necessarily need to be opened. One man's meat is another man's poison ( "....and my favourite car is an Avions Voisin", as the rhyme goes ), after all. To my mind, some of the most heinous 'molestations' of the S30-series Z come in the written and verbal form. People who don't know what they are talking about can be serial offenders.