Mike Hollander

Somewhere buried, I've got Z-lid literature. The problem with all the 240Z sunroofs (and yes, they were all aftermarket) is that the car wasn't designed for them and they tended to flex - and leak - as well as weaken any rollover support until you installed a rollbar. One of the neatest installations ever was a rollbar I got for my '72 240 (HLS30-53332, which replaced my '70 HLS30-01455). It took up no usable space in the hatch compartment, yet stiffened the chassis considerably and improved handling.

Back when I was researching for Datsunews, the club publication, I came across the author (this was in 1974) of Fairlady, the definitive history of the Z. It was a hardbound book that was the progenitor for two additional volumes (my car and I were pictured in the second volume as we turned 100,000 miles right in front of Nissan headquarters in the U.S.). These books are in Japanese with occasional English captions, but the pictures are worth the price of admission (which was 18,000 yen in 1974).

I had a ride in a Z432 which was in the U.S. illegally. The owner was a C-5 pilot who had driven the car onto his plane at Yokota AFB in Japan and driven it off the base at Travis AFB in Northern California. He did get caught and had to change out the engine of his right-hand drive car for a U.S. spec engine, but there was no penalty! Of course this was a LONG time ago. My guess is that the statute of limitations has passed.

Dear forum members, Thank you for the kind words. The Complete Datsun Guide was written a very long time ago and the publisher, TAB Books, Inc. (now a division of McGraw-Hill) had a warehouse fire that destroyed many of the copies. Thus the significantly higher price for the book on the secondary market. It's a bit of sweet irony that the book title is almost literally true. Just after publication, Nissan announced that it would unify its brand image worldwide and eliminate the Datsun name from the North American market. (Interestingly enough, they kept the Datsun name for trucks and small cars on the Japanese domestic market for a long time.) I made little money on the book - just the pittance of the advance - on the other hand, when I interviewed for the job of product information manager at Nissan's ad agency, the book helped me to obtain a job that I held for 12 years at two agencies. I no longer work on Nissan, but would be happy to answer any questions that I can. Best regards, Michael F. Hollander Editor Racing Information Systems http://www.motorsportsforum.com