Identifying a 240Z by chassis number

[Gareth]

Hi everyone,

 

my car is a Euro 240Z, which was bought new in Switzerland in a Datsun dealership on June 13th, 1973. The car's chassis number is HLS30 52689, which means that it's a series II 240Z. I read in the car's papers that it was also built in 1973, but as far as I know there are younger USDM cars that have higher chassis numbers (I went through the "Roll Call S30" topic, and some US owners have younger cars with higher chassis no's). While I know that the US cars were a completely different story than the Euro cars, is it possible that my car no. 52689 is a '73? All Euro cars had round-top SU carbs. My car has a E88 head, and I'm almost sure that this is the one it came with from the factory (I don't know if the Euro Zs had E31 heads). Can this be a '72 or '71 model?

 

Tony

[Pop N Wood]

This page has a bunch of info on Z car vin numbers

 

Youi also might try getting the attention of a member with a screen name of HS30-H. He seems to be a pretty knowledgable historian on early Z's.

[HS30-H]

Gareth,

 

Your car - if it was indeed an original Swiss-market 'HLS30' model - shared its body serial number sequence with the USA/Canada export market 'HLS30U' models. Therefore, dating the period of manufacture is quite easy. I reckon HLS30-52689 was built in late October or early November of 1971.

 

It appears that it was not unusual for some of the cars sold into the European mainland, Scandinavian and UK markets to hang around for some time before being sold. There are many possible reasons for this, and we could go into them another time perhaps, but for the record I don't think it is unusual - so you should not worry about it.

 

There are hundreds of clues on each car to date the manufacturing period, as many components were date-stamped during the quality control process by the OEM part suppliers. Most of the components on the car will have been made just a matter of weeks or at most a month or two before the car drove out of the factory and was transported to Honmoku Wharf in Yokohama.

 

One of the easiest places to find one of these date stamps is the base for the rear view mirror. Just whack the mirror ( or give it a good pull ) to release the retaining spring - which is a crash safety feature - and reveal the base that is screwed to the header rail. Look closely, and with a bit of luck the QC date stamp in white ink might still be legible. You will see a year, a month and a day in numerical form, but the year will be a 'Showa' year number ( 'Showa' being the period of reign of the incumbent Japanese emperor at time of manufacture ) so you have to add 25 years ( Emperor 'Showa' - that's Hirohito to us - ascended the Chrysanthemum throne in 1925 ) to get the correct year. If the car was made in 1971 then I'd expect you to find a Showa year number of '46'.

 

If the car still has its original Takata seatbelts then their date of manufacture is stated on the white labels. The steering wheel centre ( around the horn mechanism ) is also a date stamp location, as are the rear surfaces of all the Kanto Seiki instruments. Cross-reference enough of these date stamps and you should get a pretty good idea of the manufacturing period of the car to within perhaps a few weeks - which should be good enough for most purposes.

 

Be wary of USA/Canada-market 'HLS30U' model variant-specific data and information when applying it to your car. Some ( or most ) of it will be applicable to your car, but some won't. For example, your car will almost certainly have been supplied as-new with the FS5C71-A five-speed transmission and 3.9 ratio R180 diff from the Factory, whereas the 'HSL30U' variants were not. The E88 head is most likely the original head. You might want to take all the talk of 'Series One' and 'Series Two' etc etc with a big pinch of salt, as it only partially corresponds with the spec of your car. Nissan themselves never used such terminology for these cars, and it is largely a creation of the USA market owners I think.

 

To be honest, the classiczcars.com forum would be a better place to conduct research for data on questions such as this, and you will find the topic of production dates and model variants has been discussed many times in the past there. Most of the time your questions will be answered swiftly and accurately - but again, watch out for the naturally dominating USA-bias of the information and sift it for what is and is not applicable.

 

Congrats on owning a comparatively rare variant with a good factory spec.

 

 

 

Alan T.

[fhptom]

Alan that is amazing. I don't even know that much about my own life history.

I can't keep that much info in my head it might explode.

[COZY Z COLE]

Alan T. .....Thanks for the info.

 

 

LARRY

[Gareth]

Alan, thank you so much! I'll check the details you mentioned. The car is completely disassembled, which should also make the production date search easier.

 

Congrats on owning a comparatively rare variant with a good factory spec.

 

Thanks! To tell you the truth, I accidentally found it on the Internet, on some Swiss website - the seller was in the classic car bussiness, so he knew what he was selling. Thankfully, he was such a nice guy that he gave me a better price, and left some original spare parts in the car...

 

It seems that Euro (HLS30, not the British HS30s) models are quite rare. According to Zhome.com (I don't know if it's a reliable source, I remember Alan correcting some misleading info from that on classiczcars.com forum) only 89 were exported to Europe in '71. Not many of them are left...

 

Tony