Archived · Classic Cars · 2 min read
Datsun 240Z
Building street cred with such vehicles as the Honda S800 and Toyota 2000GT, Japan was starting to emerge as a legitimate sports car maker. The…
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Historical article recovered from a Wayback capture dated 2006-08-23.
Building street cred with such vehicles as the Honda S800 and Toyota 2000GT, Japan was starting to emerge as a legitimate sports car maker.
The challenge for the Japanese was to break into the lucrative US market - and with the competition quickly becoming dated (such vehicles as the Austin Healey 3000, Triumph TR and E-Type Jaguar) the time was ripe.
Enter the 240Z - a car that was to become the best selling sports car of the 70’s.
Designed by Albrecht Goertz (who also designed for BMW), the car had muscular lines, a beautiful long bonnet and recessed lights - clearly a copy of the E-Type but was pure and elegant enough to have it’s own appeal.
The smooth and punchy straight six motor produced 151 bhp from a total capacity of 2393cc, delivering this via a 5 speed manual gear box to a strut and wish-bone rear end - all for the same price as the lesser Triumph GT6.
Over 150,000 were sold before the 260Z took over in 1975, where the vehicle lost some of it’s true sports car appeal as a concession to automatic transmissions and longer larger wheel bases. Unfortunately rust is the main enemy of the 240Z.
