Doehring

The car looks so nice, but these bumpers ...

EScanlon, thanks for that important advice!

The 280ZX, esp. the 2 seater, is a nice and comfortable GT car but technically to me it is much more complicated than the 240Z or the 260Z. I have a 240Z as well as a 280ZX. I had for instance more rust problems with the ZX. Repairing costs for the ZX seem to me higher, may be because the car is more complicated and because I can't do that much work on the ZX myself. On the other hand parts for the Z are more difficult to get and by that more expensive, but 240Z.org and the club members are a great help, even an advantage. For long distance travelling I prefer the ZX, for more fun the Z. Nevertheless, under the line I would prefer the Z - with a tear in my eye. Rolf

Thanks Derk ! Rolf

Hallo 2manyZs, thank you, that sounds good. Normally the MSA show is late spring/early summer. In that case my wife and I intend to spent our holidays in the west, starting in Vegas, driving through your wonderful country and ending with the Convention in LA from where we have good flight possibilities back home to Germany. By the way, did you see that I dedicated one of my pictures ("Partenen") to you because of the nice building and your friendly comment on my pic of my Z in front of that belgium castle? Who has more informations? Rolf

Can anyone already give me informations on the Convention 2004? Where, when and which Club is hosting? Thanks in advance Rolf

mperdue, I just saw you are in Dallas. Do you perhaps know my friends "Mad" Mike and Russell Siebert? Russell was here last summer and could tell you how it looks like here. Mike might come next summer. Rolf

mperdue, thank you for your great response. Under "Quartz Sand" we understand a very fine sand that we use for instance to fill the small gaps between flagstones in the garden, also to minimize weeds growin' there. It's not expensive. I will try it in spring and look how much dust I will have when sandblasting. At the moment it is very cold and snowy outside. Rolf

mperdue, thanks for the reply. Did you try quartz sand and if, what's you experiance? Rolf

Hi all, well, it's not a Z but I think it's interesting to see that NISSAN is officially engaged in this year's Paris-Dakar desert rallye with it's Pick up and the drivers Vatanen and Shirozouka are performing well. Informations are at www.dakar.com Rolf

2manyz's, you are absolutely right. That car looks good. Reminds me immediatly on Steve McQueen's "Bullit"-Mustang. The 350Z reminds me on an AUDI TT and here I would prefer the TT Quattro Turbo - depending on the price Nissan will charge here. The last 300 ZX Twin Turbo was more than 55k $$ here. If they have a similar price policy with the 350Z it will be a rare car on our Autobahn! Rolf

mperdue, I looked into my english-german diktionary but I couldn't find out what a "strainer from a grocery" could be, especially not in connection with sandblasting. Would you please give me an explanation or sent a pic. Thanks! Rolf

260Z, my Tokicos are non adjustable gas shocks. I forgot to say that I changed all (incl. sh.. spindle pin and bushings) bushings to urethane ones. Lowering the car doesn't mean new problems, but don't forget a good bump stop in case .. ( see my 1st post). Concerning the dimensions of struts, shocks, seats and springs of a 280Z compared to a 240Z I don't know much but there should be differences because MSA (Motorsport) divides in it's catalog into 70-73, 74 and 74.5-78. So be careful Rolf

260Z, Eibach originally is a german company but they don't have the progressive springs here in Europe available. I got in contact with the Eibach engeneers because I had a problem with my Eibachs that I got from Motorsports: When jumping at high speed (about 90 mls/h) over the railways at a crossing I had a hard landing and the right rear spring bended to the outside and damaged the strut housing. You must know the car will be lowered by about 3 cm when using Eibachs. I sent the spring to Eibach Germany for testing. They had to ask their US affiliate for the technical data because these springs are manufactured in their US factory. That's where you or your dealer has to look and to get them from. By the way, the springs are still okay and work fine now, esp. together with the Tokico shocks. The mistakes were: 1.) I put the rear springs upside down( the "Eibach" brand must be readable) 2.) I forgot the spacer underneath the rear insulator and 3.) I didn't install a bump stop. The Eibach /Tokico combo is my recommendation! Not to forget: Joseph C. from MSA was a great help ! Good luck Rolf

Hi Sean, are you shure they will not use the DATSUN brand for their TRUCKS? That wouldn't surprise me. Did you succeed with your inner fender protections? Rolf

Here in Germany in the early 70s there was - as Alan said for GB - a big anti-japanese cars prejudice. The big advantage of japanese cars in these days was their low price for a fully equipped car. End of the 60s I bought an Honda S 800 Coupe, a great car compared to Fiats, BMW 700, Midgets or Spitfires or even Alfas and I did a lot of races with the car, but people always looked at me like a fool driving a japanese car. There was only one japanese car that had a better image, the 240 Z! Why, because of it's Safari Rally success. When they changed the name to Nissan the management here had to spend a lot of money for the new image and that became worse and not better. Nissan is for tedious "bread and butter" cars and not even the ZX could change that - too expensive here in the country of BMW, Mercedes ,Porsche and - nowadays - Audi. When I take my 240Z to an event a lot of people, especially people in the 50s or 60s, come to me and say "That was a great car, it's a pity that Datsun died". You see, they still don't bring Datsun and Nissan in a line whereas the young people don't know Datsun and Nissan isn't of great interest to them - exept the little Micra ("March" in the US, I think), a ladies favorite. Why did Nissan never care for it's history ? I hope the french influence will change that! By the way Fred, I think the Renault share is 44.5% of Nissan. Greetings from Germany Rolf

Classic (Historique) Monte Carlo Rallye 2003 will take place Jan.31st - Febr. 5th. 341 (!) participants will enter the parcours, among them 5 240Z. One will be driven by Tony Fall, ex Datsun works car driver. For more information look at www.acm.mc Enjoy Rolf

Hi Alan, I read you are in Japan or are you already back? I wish you - and everybody on the list - the sort of year that great memories are made of ! Interesting what you write about the "non-tag" on RHD cars. I didn't know that. What you say about the Datsun/Nissan philosophy on production years is what I learned from a Nissan manager here, too. On my Z's right door jamb I have my personal tag. It has the same dimension like the original one on the left side, but I hammered into it the car's "personal" dates like day of delivery to the first owner, importation date from the US to Germany, the day I bought it, and day of my first drive after restauration.Foolish, isn't it, but I like the symmetry to have a tag at each jamb. Rolf

Hi all, www.zhome.com has a register where many of us have registered their VINs. They are in an order and it seems that the VINs are linked to a time order. By the way, isn't the production date of your car on that little label that is fixed to the B-pillar at the driver's side? Rolf

Steve, thank you, that's good news. Here in Germany we had only very few 240Zs. Datsun stopped sales within one year and since then they sell only 2+2 versions here (260 Z 2+2 - 300ZX Twin Turbo 2+2). My 240Z 2seater is an US import. Rolf