Mid-to-late '72 Series II car. Would love to look that one over up close! What a great barn find, altho you've known it was there all those 30 years!

30 years in a garage equates to 30 New England winters your Z didn't have to suffer thru. That should mean very little exposure to winter roadsalt (the only thing that really kills these cars), hence the tiny rust.

I would welcome the opportunity to examine this car when you feel free.
What a beauty!

Frank

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1970 240Z

Oh sweet baby Jesus!!!!

I'm jealous, that cleaned up very nicely!

Hi Scott, welcome to the club.

My name is Rob, and like the others have said I live close by in Jamestown. I have been a member of this club for less than a year, but I've been into z-cars for a long time. For the short time i have been a member, I haved learned this is a great and active club. The members on here are always willing to help out. I have always done all the work on my cars and have gotten to know these cars pretty well.

It's cool that you live so close, most of the members are further away in CT. If you need a hand with anything or are having trouble figuring anything out I'd love to help. Getting another 240z on the road close by will be great. I barely ever see any of these cars around.

What are you goals for the car? Stock driver, modified, weekend toy?

Talk to you soon.

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Rob
1971 240z

Why don't we all gang up on him and go Zee it together? Get Ross and Paul and some others on a free day and we'll all go out there for an hour some laZy Saturday?

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1970 240Z

All this is great, I'm very excited to have found this group. As Frank suggested I'm thinking one Saturday or Sunday in the next couple week of having you all over to check it out. I would really love all your feedback on the car.

Rob, to answer your question about my plans for the car. I'm really into the stock look and keeping it pretty much stock. maybe some mods to the engine and some suspension upgrades but that is about it. I like the classic look. The car will never see a rain drop or snowflake and will just be for those nice days here in RI for cruising around.

Scott

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1973 240Z
North Kingstown, RI

["I'm very excited to have found this group."] Well, we're pretty excited to find a new member with such an original time-capsule '72 Z car! Four years ago TODAY (10Aug2009), an unknown fellah strolled out of the crowd at a local car show and told us he has the very first Z ever released from the factory in his barn here in CT. We went and 'found' car #HLS30-00013, the very earliest 240Z ever made by the factory for sale to the public. It was made in Oct69 and was more than 95% all original. Looking back, it's still hard for us to comprehend that such a world icon could sit in a barn for over 31 years (while the world's entire Z community searched the globe for it) and then be so casually rediscovered. Since then the car has won numerous awards, but until 10Aug2009, only family members knew it was stored in there and nobody thought anyone else would care.

That's sort of like your car. It has been preserved for 3 decades and a lot of people will want to zee it when you bring it out of hiding.

1971 was a very 'transitional' year for the 240Z. Datsun didn't know if the Z car would sell well or not ( ) so they only made about 10,000 of the first-year cars (Oct69-Sep70), and sold 7,000 of them to the USA. The demand was so overwhelming, the factory couldn't keep up.

In 1971 they made roughly 35,000 cars, but they changed significantly over that year. From Oct70 - Feb71, they looked almost exactly like the 1970 cars, altho some internal improvements had been made. I like to call those 5 months the 'transitional cars' or 'interim cars'.

In Feb71 they changed the car visibly by replacing the early "hatch vent" ventilation system with the side pillar holes. That made the car lose the 240Z 'wings' on either side pillar and gain the circular 'snake ears' your car has. It was a better system, and didn't let exhaust fumes back into the cabin. They also changed the steering wheel from a solid spoke unit to one which had punched-out panels. The electrical system had several upgrades, and the body was strengthened in several areas to resist flex. The rear hatch defroster wires remained vertical until a bit later when tests showed it did a better job if they made them horizontal. The 1971 cars weighed a few hundred pounds more than the early lightweight 1970 cars, but performance was only slightly less. They refer to those cars as the "Series-II cars".

As time went on, the 240 got heavier and swapped carburetors from the '4-screw round tops' to the '3-screw round tops' and eventually to the notorious 'flattops', which had serious vapor lock and after boil problems. The early 1971 cars also retained the early high compression (9:1) E-31 head. Somewhere about the summer of 1971 they swapped over to the lower (8:1) compression E88 head and horsepower slacked off a bit, altho the car breathed better thru bigger valves and polluted less. Anti-pollution was becoming a big concern in the 1970s.

As time wore on, little by little the added weight of the new Zs, coupled with the lessened horsepower, resulted in older 240s being able to walk away from showroom-new 240s, which embarrassed the owners of new Zs, who had actually paid a LOT more for their new car than the earlier cars had cost. In effect they were paying a lot more for a lot less performance and fun ~ AND they had the problematic flat top SUs to live with every day. So Datsun introduced the 260Z (which I could still beat with my '70Z) and then the mighty fuel-injected 280Z (which I could stay abreast of up to 70mph).

The 280 was actually more of a true luxury GT car than a true sportscar, altho Bob Sharp Racing and Brock Racing Enterprise made each successive model win on the racetracks.

The S30 Zs were so overwhelmingly popular, they became the world's best-selling sports/GT cars in history. No other sportscar has yet outsold the Z. The S30 was the very first sportscar to ever sell 500,000 units in the first 10 years of its production, and later Zs continued that record by being the first Sports/GT cars to ever sell 1,000,000 units in the first 20 years of production. No other sportscar brand name has EVER achieved that. Some cars (Alfa Romeo, Mercedez Benz, Auto Union/Audi, Ferrari, MG, Triumph, OSCA/Maserati, Austin Healey, etc) date back to prewar years and STILL haven't reached those sales figures, despite a 4-decade head-start. Hence, your classic 1971 240Z is among the very most-desireable, high-selling sportscars in world automotive history. Only the Volkswagen has outsold the Z cars, and that's hardly in the same class. The Datsun/Nissan Z cars continuously dominated C-Production road racing class from the very year it was introduced, often winning races outright against A-Production Cobras and Corvettes.

So be proud of what you own there, Scott ~ treat it with respect and think long and hard before you carve it up to make something 'custom' with it. My personal sincere congratulations to you and your dad for having preserved an important piece of automotive history. Everybody wants these cars today. Everybody has a Z story. Everybody over 50 has owned one or ridden in one or lusted over one during his past, and everyone under 50 wants one.

Sorry about ranting on. I just got a little excited about your sensational 240Z time capsule.

Frank

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1970 240Z

When you get a moment, please look inside the driver's door and take a clear-focus picture of your build plate for us? That will tell us the VIN and month of manufacture. We'll explain some interesting facts about that when you do. Thanks.

Frank

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1970 240Z

Frank,

Sorry for the delay, here is a picture of the build plate.

Scott

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1973 240Z
North Kingstown, RI

Not Bad???
That thing looks OUTSTANDING after all this time!

How are your rubbers? (Wx seals, bumper rubber, etc)

Im new here, but Im in RI too. East Prov. Ill have my white beauty on the road again once I fix the dmg the car thief f***ers did.

There has been some talk in past years that Rhode Island needed its own Z Club. There are enough active members there today to do that. You guys should talk. The CTZCC started out with 6 members, I think.

There's no way any of you could quit the CTZCC, tho! Once you've joined us, you're our member for life. You can't quit a free Club.

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1970 240Z

Scott
Welcome to the club! Bee-yoo-tee-ful s30!
I've got a '73 service manual here in eastern Ct (8 min from RI line,as the z flies) you could copy if all else fails.
Zee ya this summer.
Al

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71 240zx

Good to meet others in RI. I agree with Frank the numbers are growing which is very cool. My parents live in CT so I am down that way all the time. In fact there is nothing better than taking the Z for a nice RI to CT drive to stretch her legs.

Al, thanks for the offer on the manual but I actually have one. If your going to own a Z I think it's a must. Funny I downloaded it before I actually got the car and then my uncle ended up sending me an original he got from the dealership back in 1973.

For those that are interested the car is coming along really well given it's been sitting for 30 years. I can't even begin to list all the work that has been done to it to get it back on the road but it runs great now, the carbs still need to flush themselves out but they are getting better the more I drive it. They actually probably need to be rebuilt but I'm not ready to tackle that just yet. All the rubber parts are in bad shape and they are slowly being replaced. That is the main winter project along with upgrading the ignition system. Will post some pictures soon.

Scott

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1973 240Z
North Kingstown, RI