It's often the little things that you notice and think far too much about.

In this little story, I would like to take a look at the windshield wipers of the early prototypes.

But how does a windshield wiper work, and which area of a windshield does it clear of rain?
In the meantime, and we can certainly speak of a certain standard and a common mounting position, the wiper blades always point away from the steering wheel and thus wipe an area that guarantees the driver a maximum free area.
When defining the direction, it is certainly also important to ensure that you can see enough at the edge of your own lane.

The Z models for the LHD markets therefore have wipers mounted so that they point to the left (when looking at the car from the front). The models for the RHD markets, on the other hand, have the wipers mounted exactly differently. Here they point to the right.

But Nissan didn't always stick to it.
I first noticed a slightly different wiper position in images of the 260Z.
Here Nissan showed a very early export model, which according to the subtitles in the book “Fairlady Z Story” by Miki Press is described as a European version.

However - and here again the versatility of the individual specifications becomes apparent - we see a wild mix of components that never found their way to Europe in this combination.
Simply because all European countries had their own specifications and regulations for commissioning new cars.

What's so special about them? Let's move on for a moment and look at the other special features of these cars.

• transparent front indicators under the bumper (with very few exceptions, European countries had mounted indicators on the bumper)
• US bumper overriders (these were seen at most as an option from time to time in Europe)
• no exterior mirrors at all
• no side indicators
• neither front nor rear spoiler

However, the most striking feature of these early models is clearly the windshield wipers. And that's what this article is about.
They were taken, together with the cowl panel, from a vehicle with the steering wheel on the other side. As mentioned above, the wiper blades on the entire S30 family never point towards the steering wheel.

It is therefore clear to see that these were not final vehicles, but once again only test cars or prototypes.
Incidentally, such photos with “false” wipers cannot be found on earlier models from 1969-1973.

In principle, there are hardly any cars that already have windshield wipers at this early stage of development. And yet there are differences.
Some models have wipers that point to the right, while some have them the other way around.
I can't say whether there was already a certain differentiation between the domestic market and the export market at this early stage. However, this differentiation certainly existed in the further process - and I would like to show these particular models here.

So it is quite clear that design decisions were made early on to take export markets under consideration. This is very clear from the models that already have emblems.

The picture also makes it clear that this model must have been quite late in the process and was therefore created later or in parallel to this red model, which was already used for studio shots and did not yet have any emblems.
Here we see relatively finalized fender emblems, but still a discovery phase of the emblems on the C-pillar.
No wonder, then, that this car, apparently developed for the LHD export market, has the wipers mounted in the “correct” direction.

The very early Nissan 2000GT design, which has the steering wheel on the right but the wipers on the other side, seems curious. Incidentally, this arrangement was retained in the Toyota 2000GT.

Incidentally, this windshield wiper theme can also be found on other models, such as the 220C or the Nissan Silvia CSP31.

In the picture of the 220C shown below from the 1972 "Nissan type overview" from the Netherlands, you can clearly see that very early brochures in particular show “wrong” wipers. In later years in the brochures of the same car, on the other hand, everything is the other way around.

So it seems to have been quite common for Nissan to build the turned interior of an LHD car into an RHD body in prototype status. This made it much easier to quickly take photos for brochures and advertising.

In the case of the CSP31, it even goes so far that the version in Japan has supposed LHD wipers fitted, while the concept of the LHD version had wipers in the other direction. It is therefore quite possible that the concept of a “correct” direction was not really defined until the time of the S30.

This 1969 advertisement of unknown origin shown below, on the other hand, shows an LHD CSP31 with “Japanese” wipers.

How can that work?

Pretty much the same as with the Z's false emblems.
Here, Nissan reached deep into its bag of tricks and also edited the photo afterwards for this advertisement. There was a special room with a large machine for this process. This process usually took a whole night.
This is what Yoshihiko Matsuo told our Japanese team member Kats Endo.

To prove this, I found a photo of the CSP311 in the book “Automotive Quarterly 1986 Vol 24 No 3”, which looks exactly the same if you look closely. Except for the steering wheel.
To show this, I have superimposed the two pictures here.

Once again, we see that great stories are hidden in the smallest details.
Nissan shows with such topics that everything was a constant process. There was always something that was not yet finished. There was always something that was further developed.
This flow of states runs through the entire history of the company.
So you always have to look closely and understand that “right” is not “right” and that it usually depends on the perspective.
It's also worth looking at the same photos and reading the same books over and over again.