26th-Z

Will's judging team at Cleveland included Chris Karl, chair of the Cleveland convention and ZCCA vice president, and Cathy, a convention participant and 350Z owner as I recall. I don't remember the classes I judged at Cleveland but I would say that the scoring was very light due to the high number of cars that made it into the Gold Cup / Medallion round. Of course you recall we tried to get all the cars out in daylight only to have it start raining again. What a fiasco. Al forgot to mention that he won the most unique top award. Guys, the judges do the best they can and you gotta recognize them for spending the time to look at all the cars. It takes around thirty judges to do the ZCCA show and it is an all-day affair for most. There simply aren't thirty people who consistantly show up at the ZCCA conventions year-after-year to offer the quality of judging we might wish for. My hat is off to anyone who will take the time to act as a judge and be around to help. To that end, the ZCCA judging is focused on cleanliness in an effort to keep the playing field level. I know it gets tricky in the stock classes but that's only one group of classes out of five groups. I know all about the rain issues - I judged exteriors for the final round. It's all supposed to be fun and no one should take anything personal. For the judges, it's rather difficult - frankly. Yea, I think it is time to publish a rules revision. We'll see... Generally speaking, the way scoring deductions work, 10 points for something that appears brand new, 5 points for obviously used appearance, and 0 points for disgraceful looking junk.

"NO - someone showed up with a Dayton Coupe - prehaps the best example of the design. It is planned to be sold in the next couple of months and they expect it to sell in the $10M to $12M range." Carl, Is this the car you are talking about? It was promoted for the RM auction at Amelia. 1963 AC Cobra 289 - first Cobra entered at LeMans - did not sell at high bid of $790,000 with expectations between $1,000,000 and $1,400,000.

It appears as though you have purchased the Interpart carburetor selection from the 1973 Interpart catalog - part numbers 2102032 for the manifold and 2102033 for the linkage. The Dellorato twin-choke sidedraft carburetors were part number 1106310 for the DHLA 40 type recommended for street use. Personally, I think you got a good deal on the price.

Mike, The exact wording is; "Vehicles exhibited must be configured exactly as shipped from factory (NOT DEALER). Cars with Dealer add-ons such, as wheels, other than stock tires, side moldings, etc. can enter this class with deductions for same. Radios, paint color, tires, etc. must be as shipped. A/C must be factory installed except 240Z which may have same A/C as installed by dealer, i.e. ARA or Frigid King, with basic York compressor." I can see a case for the hand throttle. "Tires must be as shipped" is interesting.

I don't know what the big beef is. Up until now, new replacement parts have been readily available at the Nissan or eBay parts counter. Many, many parts are still available and will be for some time. Try that with your restoration of a 1925 Franklin Runabout. Come-on guys. Reproducing parts is part of the game. Usually it is far more time consuming and costly to restore or reproduce a part than it is to go to the Nissan or eBay parts counter and buy it. Will didn't post my answer: reproduction is a good thing and I have tried to practice reproduction every day for the past fourty years.

I guess I was off-comment a tad and I didn’t mean to offend anyone. There is nothing wrong with reproducing a part or refinishing a piece. That’s what restoration is all about. The guy who spends all kinds of time and money to find a correct original is just restoring his project the same as the guy who spends the same restoring or reproducing his. In certain cases, restoring an original is far more expensive than replacing it even with a reproduction. What has me concerned is the faithfulness of the reproduction and how it is used. In the case of my last comment, how it is used. You see, in twenty or thirty years when we are all sitting around in the nursing home and we have nothing better to do than compare knobs, no one is going to remember who has the actual authentic correct knob. Or worse yet, they are going to try to convince me that their knob belongs in a place it never really was.

Good point, Unkle, which is another reason why I think the ZCCA rules need to be revised. For instance, the mirror 96321-E4600 differs from the later E4601 and simply placing a red dot knob on an E4601 mirror does not make it an E4600, does it? The fuel door knobs being reproduced have a similar difference with regard to the base plate as I understand. I still need to compare, but the early plastic thumb latch aligns in a different position to the base plate of the later style latch mechanism. Perhaps in this case, one cannot outwardly tell the difference however the mirror thing has me baffled.

Way to go, Kats! Your car is a centerfold, yes? A beautiful fair lady for the month! Love the racing pictures. Filipe, those are great pictures - would love to have a copy of the Fairlady cover without the comment. Great photograph. Chris

Hmmm....Note to self; "Find one of those Ansel Adams posters and get Mr. K to sign it". Way cool stuff, Mike.

I know about this one. What did you have in mind?

I forgot about that Edit Grid and looking at it reminded me of HLS30-00033 which I tried to buy several years ago. I thought MikeB would like these pictures. I started corresponding with a guy "jellobob" in New Jesey, I believe, about the car and he sent me these pictures. At first, I thought the whole thing was a farce, but some time later, at a ZCCA convention, I met the guy who goes by "jellobob". He still had the car but didn't want to sell it. Nice enough guy, he was known for his jello shot cocktails.

Dude! You made the big time! Nice video but I can't help giving you s**t about the birthday party video I never got! Non-the-less, we're such inept bastr'ds that we haven't figured out this video thing! Oh, the stories we could tell... Hell, you have enough cars - we could do episodes!

The picture was taken at the Mitty, correct. Ron, you beat me to it. Those are fantastic pictures of the ARRC in 1971. Thanks for the link to the ad. Those are great pictures of the restored Frisselle car.

Those are great, Mike! Just great!

It appears Bob Bell did. Here is the Speakman entry in 1978. Carl, you also commented about the bodywork. The car I photographed was a tube frame chassis with the original unibody cut up way beyond recognition. There is nothing that can be discerned from looking at the body as it was fiberglass. I also think it should be clarified that "Bondurant" did not sponsor the cars. They were entered under the name. Big difference between entrant and sponsor.

Let's go back to 1976 for a moment. Elliot Forbes-Robinson would take over driving duties for Bob Sharp who was injured in an accident in 1975. Bob had won the SCCA C-production national championship in '72, '73, and '75 having given it up in '74 to Walt Maas in his 260Z. Bob was campaigning a 280Z in SCCA C-production and a 240Z in IMSA Grand Touring Under 2.5 liter displacement. He was GTU champion in 1975. However eight of the eleven IMSA GTU races in 1976 went to Brad Frisselle and his 240Z. Brad drove to victory with John Morton in the Mid Ohio 6-hour and the Road Atlanta 1000k. Elliot Forbes-Robinson won only at Pocono where he finished a spectacular third overall. Here is a Datsun press release photo of the two cars from 1976. Sorry for the quality. The original documents are really old. Brad's car showed up at a Walter Mitty race in Atlanta in 2006 and I managed to grab a few shots of it.

Carl, I completely understand and you are to be commended for even posting a page on the car. However, I'm still confused. Here's the page on the Bondurant car in 1978. 24th overall and the drivers were Bob Bondurant, Steve Cook and Ron Southern. And I don't think this is HLS30-00008. That site is pretty cool. It has been years in the making. They have result records and members send in pictures. I have a few posted. They don't let you clip the picture off the net anymore but a fast-forward to the Nissan GTP years is well worth the surf. Incidently, I think you'll find a 240Z finishing the 1973 Sebring 12-hour. What year did the Z compete at LeMans? But since you brought up Bob Bondurant, this might be a good moment to talk a little bit about him. Bob raced Formula One in the mid sixties. He plays a role in the John Frankenheimer film; "Grand Prix" and was James Garner's driving instructor. Bob drove for Carrol Shelby and you will find him involved in the Cobra and GT40 programs. He is a close friend of Yutaka Katayama and operates the Bondurant School of High Performance Driving.

There is a web site that chronicles race results (racingsportscars.com) and I wouldn't be so sure of what is written about the car on Zhome. (Sorry Carl) It is not listed on the entry list in 1975 and it didn't finish 4th overall - George Dyer's 911 RSR did in 1975. In 1976, car #81 was a 911S. I didn't want to say anything, but I do remember talking to the guy because the car was a very low serial # and that would have interested me at the time because I owned 26th. "At the time" would have been 1984 and car #81 shows up on the entry list for the 24-hours of Daytona as a 240Z driven by John Saucier, Ronnie Franklin, and Chuck Gravel. It was gridded 42nd, as I remember, and I don't recall the car finishing. Perhaps it did, 4th in class perhaps?

That's exactly what this thread is intended to do, Mike! Let's have a little fun and dig into those old boxes in the attic! Here's Daytona at the 24-hour some long time ago. I don't remember who this is. Running in GTU.

Too funny, Will! Take pictures as you go! Marty, This is just like the old plaster casting we used to make as kids. The mold material is a silicon rubber that is mixed (carefully) from two parts and poured around the original piece. Cured, the mold will peel right off the original.

From the 1973 American Road Race of Champions, Road Atlanta, Georgia. I sure would like to keep this thread "vintage - vintage". Maybe we can entice Alan into posting some pics from racing around the world.

Bob Sharp at the Paul Whiteman Trophy races in Daytona - August 1971

This is what Will is working with.

I have the square knobs. Will and I have been talking about making molds and casting parts. I have been using "Smooth-On" products to make silicone rubber molds and casting new rigid parts in urethane. Epoxy resins are now available and they can be used with metal powder fillers. This work is rather involved and it takes some practice to get good at it. I think Will has a vacuum box which gets the bubbles out of the mold liquid - something I would need. Sure, a gasket for the antenna base could be made.

I call it "dum-dum". Black sticky rope calk. It squeezes flat.