Many things disappear somewhere in the shadows and are rarely retrieved. They are forgotten. Nobody cares, and in general, some secrets just don't seem to want to be told that often.
Today's story is about how Nissan did a photo shoot at the very end of development, shortly before the presentation of the 240Z or Fairlady Z, before it was even clear what the emblems of the car would look like or what specs the individual export markets would have.
It's actually pretty crazy when you think about it these days.
Nissan puts a car in the studio sometime in 1969, takes photos of it, and still uses the resulting photos years later. But then, with a few adjustments here and there. And this was long before the invention of Photoshop or other computer programmes.

But not only that. Even the bumpers and other things were reworked. Technically quite complex, without today's modern methods.

However, I would like to start by collecting all the photos from this shoot.

As I said, the point is that these photos clearly show the following things:

• All emblems are missing from the body. The hubcaps do not show the typical "D" either.
• The car has no antenna, just a rubber plug at this position.
• There is no clock and no radio in the interior (hence no antenna). But: DATSUN is already written on the horn. In a clearly different font, as all other emblems were later given.
• The car has "typical US" overriders on the bumpers. But let's not forget that this was also an option in Japan to protect against parking damage!
• The car has side marker lights for the US market at the front and rear.
• The car is red.
• In the engine compartment, we see a blue air filter box.
• It is a left-hand drive vehicle.

Certainly the first European publication of these photos was in a brochure published at the "Genfer Autosalon" (Switzerland) in March 1970.

But what exactly do we see here? Pictures of the studio shots that have already been shown above.
But is that all? No. Because once again, we should pay attention to the little things.

Particular attention should be paid to the picture of the rear. As already mentioned at the beginning, the overriders are clearly visible.
Components that you never got in the final Swiss delivery. The overriders can also be seen at the front. BUT: without the rubber mouldings that were still on the car during the shoot.

Here, however, these have been retouched out, showing an option to offer the car without rubber bars.
These were also available in Japan - again without radio and clock. It is therefore quite possible that Nissan wanted to offer several variants with different equipment for the launch in Europe (or specifically for the launch in Switzerland).

The picture below shows the retouched version of the bumpers in the CH brochure without rubbers on the left - on the right we see the original photo.

As just mentioned, Nissan has tampered with the Swiss brochure a little and removed rubber bars. A minor detail that is hardly noticeable.
But that wasn't all. Because some time later, Nissan knew that in Switzerland (and certainly throughout Europe) they hadn't planned the issue with the rubbers, but instead knew very well that the car shouldn't have the overriders on the bumpers.

So these were also removed in the retouching.

This difference can be seen in the Swiss brochures that were distributed to customers after the end of 1971, as the first rally successes and the modified interior with the new centre console can already be seen here.

In a slightly earlier brochure, however, this retouching cannot actually be seen!

Below I would like to show the pictures in detail again and also compare them here.

On the left is the early CH version and on the right the later retouched version. The overriders and rubbers must be considered in each case.

You will have noticed that the shots from the front are not from the studio shoot shown at the beginning.
This can be recognised by the antenna and the emblems. These have not been retouched onto the car (as was done later, see below), but were already on the car.

The photos used here are from a yellow Z, which already shows the full US specs and can be seen in the 1970 "Datsun 240-Z Sports" brochure. This brochure was also used in France in 1971. With identical pictures.

Incidentally, the interior photos with the automatic transmission and radio, which can also be seen in the Swiss brochure, also come from this shoot.

So Nissan skilfully mixes photos from several phases of development here.

So you could say that early photos showing the Z without emblems, without antenna and without radio were taken in the studio.
The photos showing the Z with emblems, antenna and automatic transmission, however, are from the Safari Gold shoot.
This should not be confused with the photos of the red EU car that can be seen on the cover of the Swiss brochure. Here we can already see a car that was produced later in 1971!

A small side note: There were actually plans to offer the models for the North American market without a radio, without a clock, without carpets (but with rubber mats) and without folding seats. In other words, almost identical to the Japanese base model. The reason for this was to reduce weight and costs!

In Switzerland, these photos were also used in other places.
Firstly, there were flyers as early as 1970, long before the official sales launch.
On the other hand, the 1971 press documentation offered the opportunity to order so-called "clichés". In other words, prints of the studio shots. Including the missing rubbers!
So we are still ahead of the brochures shown above, which already show progressive EU specs.

Many thanks to Nils for these photos.

The subject of the bumpers and the following EU retouching are difficult to recognise and certainly hardly noticeable.
In the "Classic Z Cars" forum mentioned above, this discovery is described as follows:

"Not sure about this studio photo Weird bumper Maybe plastic prototype"

I hope that the research on this page has helped to solve this mystery.

But now let's move on to something else, something much more obvious. Namely, the false emblems.
The shoot in 1969 took place without emblems. But Nissan needed them on the cars and especially in the brochures. It was therefore decided to simply retouch the emblems onto the cars.

This led to some rather wild results, which were of course due to the technical possibilities of the time.

I would like to start with an early Belgian brochure. Here, the emblems on the bonnet, on the fender and on the C-pillar were retouched.
Probably the first colour photo of the side view is also shown here.

Such emblem retouching was very common, especially in US publications. Like here in a manual or in the 1969 US brochure.

It is interesting to note that both illustrations feature differently slanted and incorrectly positioned emblems.

But why? You often ask yourself this question with such " dubious" publications.

I think a few things come together here and would like to quote Alan Thomas, who also has some exciting details to tell about the history of its creation.

For example, illustrations of Japanese vehicles show the final specifications much earlier. So Japan had already decided very early on that they wanted to offer exactly four models. S30-S, S30-D, PS30-SB and PS30-D. The names, emblems and the differences between these models were also decided very early on.

For the North American market, however, things looked quite different. There was a certain amount of confusion and disagreement regarding the names and versions. Of course, this uncertainty also continued in the other export markets.

We know from anecdotes that there were different opinions within the Nissan Motor Corporation USA (especially on the part of Yutaka Katayama) about the name of the car. “Fairlady Z” was not particularly well received.
Alan had conversations with some of those involved on the Japanese side, and learned that Nissan Japan's management was not happy about this pushback, and there was a small struggle between the two sides.
In the end, "Datsun 240Z" won out as the name for the export models.

However, these internal discussions meant that the late decision on the name naturally also meant a late design phase for the logo, which delayed everything.

Retouched bumpers, wonky emblems. Is that all there is to it? Surely not. Nissan also charmed its customers with spontaneously mirrored vehicles for Australia.

Mike Brame published photos here in the "Classic Z Cars" forum, which has already been mentioned several times, from a press release from Australia dated 21 September 1970.
He also shows a photo that he bought on eBay in 2009, with the note that not only the car was mirrored here, but also the number plate was simply painted over so that "DATSUN" could no longer be read upside down.
The image of the rear has also been mirrored. This can be clearly recognised by the exhaust and the antenna (rubber plugs), which are both on the wrong side.

Not only did such mirror images appear in early press releases. These photos were also used in Australian newspapers.
For example, in "The Sydney Morning Herald, Thurs, Nov 18, 1971" and "THE AGE, Tuesday, November 17, 1970"

Exciting: In the 1970s depiction, emblems were even mounted on the fender and the C-pillar. And that on the already mirrored car!

At the beginning of this article, what Nissan did seemed a bit wild to me.
It seemed as if they were improvising and bungling. But that wasn't the case.
Nissan did the same with the photos as they did with the cars.
They improved and changed them and adapted them to the current situation.

First, Nissan took photos of the car. At a time when there were no emblems yet.
Then the emblems were finalised, and the photos were adapted.
This was followed later by adjustments to the bumpers, the indicators and the spoiler - in line with the regulations and developments of EU vehicles.
And here too, Nissan followed with the photos.