Special cars belong in museums. Nobody is allowed to touch special cars. Just like the Mona Lisa, special cars belong behind glass and should actually be protected from daylight and dust.
In theory.
But cars are made to be driven. They always have been.
So what's the point of just telling old stories? Why should we believe test reports from the 1970s and are the experiences of journalists from over 50 years ago still relevant today?
Does a 1969 car drive differently in 2024 than it did back then? And how does a 1971 car compare to a 1973 car?
Nobody has asked these questions before, so there has never been an answer.
And that's exactly what we wanted to find out.

So we did what no one would do. We took the Mona Lisa off the wall and carried it out of the Louvre.
Or to put it another way: we rolled the Datsun 240Z with the VIN HLS30-00023 out of the museum, put license plates on it and drove it for 4 hours over dirty country roads in the Netherlands.
But not only that. We also took a Datsun 240Z with the VIN HLS30-60213 (built in 1971, 3-speed automatic), a Datsun 240Z built in 1973 with a 4-speed-manual, a Datsun 240Z with the VIN HLS-122130 (built in 1972, 5-speed manual transmission, EU final spec) and a Datsun 240Z from 1970 with a L28 engine and SX transmission.

The result was a test drive that could not have been more different.

When you look at the hard data, the first ideas pop into your head immediately.
"The automatic is slow, boring and for old people," "I'd rather not touch the number 23." Or even "Wow, an L28 in a 240Z must be really wild with carburetors."
But is that really true? We're going to find out. But because all of our 10 test drivers come from different countries around the world and because everyone has already had different experiences with Zs, we want to give everyone a chance to speak. So it's going to be exciting. I'm sure of it.

So let's start with Alan:

On October 25th - the day after the official opening ceremony of S30.world - a group of eager test pilots assembled in Buren to take part in a group "Test Drive" of cars from the S30.world collection. I immediately thought back to the October 24th 1969 opening of the Tokyo Motor Show and the November 5th 1969 commencement of Nissan's "Test Drives" for members of the Japanese press. So, in a small way, we were re-enacting and commemorating history...

I was paired with the well-known and respected Dutch automotive journalist Mr Ton Roks, and we would take turns to drive the cars. I was really pleased to join Ton in the cars as it was a chance to hear the opinions of somebody who has driven many, many cars as part of his work and is also a classic car enthusiast and owner in his own right. Obviously, I'm already an S30 enthusiast, so it was going to be interesting and informative to hear Ton's views from the 'outside' of our obsession. I was not disappointed!

I, Florian, the author of this article, already owned 4 Zs and I know how such cars drive. 4-speed, 5-speed, automatic. I know that. I also know a lot of books and I know a lot of opinions.
But I have never experienced such an interesting comparison between cars that are “actually” all the same, but “actually” not at all. Everything is different. Really!
If you come from sophisticated Germany and are familiar with fast highways, you don't need to test how fast a Z goes. So, for me personally, it shouldn't be about pure performance and the WOW moment.
So I got into what is probably the most unpopular model with Nils. The automatic from 1971.
But what was special about it was that it was Kats' former car, which was built in Japan for the US market, virtually unrestored, but then imported from the US to Japan by Kats. Only to end up in the Netherlands many years later. What a journey!
And now, a word to all the doubters: the automatic transmission, when freshly serviced, is a dream! This transmission is absolutely underrated and is 100% suitable for hectic everyday life.
You start the car, drive it, get out and are completely relaxed. No hassle, no searching for the perfect gear. Just relaxed driving. WOW. I didn't know it like that, and that's not how my 280Z had been.
In combination with the typically soft US suspension and very good insulation, you hear and feel almost nothing in the interior.
The car is quiet, smooth and very much on the comfortable side of life. Seriously, if you are looking for a carefree and effortless companion for everyday use, this is my secret tip.
And since I'm sure that hardly anyone shares this opinion except me, I'm very vocal about this combination of suspension and transmission.


But. That's only my opinion. Alan, on the other hand, has a completely different view of this car.

What a surprise to drive this 3-speed Auto car. It felt somewhat sluggish, and gear changes up through the box came more quickly than expected. Kick Down response was a little muted, but the biggest surprise was how heavy and ponderous the front end of the car felt. Probably the combination of automatic gearbox and all the aircon-related equipment adding extra weight at the front end, but it also felt unbalanced across the front end springing, with a strange feeling of the left side being much more under load than the right side. The steering felt leaden and heavy at lower speeds but lightened up a little as we got faster. Actually, all this would probably have made it a good 'commuter' car on the highways of the USA's West Coast, just getting it up to a cruising speed and leaving it there, listening to the radio whilst enjoying the cool air. A different kind of experience. I felt like I wanted to put more pressure in the tyres...

Kats, on the other hand, who owned this car a few years ago in Japan, has a whole new perspective on it.

This car brings back to me a lot of good memories. Because I was a previous owner of this car. It looked so original and ran like new (still now!!) that is why I decided to buy it in 2013, imported to Japan. The first owner who lived in LA had taken care of it very well, and I can tell how much he loved this car. I was told that he bought this car to go to a church with his wife located near his house. This car came to me with all the documents (owner’s manuals, warranty card, a lot of receipts) which amuse me and tell me its history in old days and I really enjoy imagining like "how exciting it was for them when they saw the car for the very first time in the dealership!" or "how this car got an air conditioning system at the local service shop?"

I don’t think most of S30 fanatics want to own the automatic transmission but, once you drive it, you will find another world of S30. Completely relaxed, luxury GT with a sleek aerodynamic exterior styling.

Advantage of the automatic transmission:
It is almost like trouble free/maintenance free compared to the manual transmission. You just need to check the transmission fluid. No need to carry about the wear of the synchro ring and the shifting rods.

To have a perfect comparison, Nils and I got into the 4-speed manual transmission right after the automatic.
Even though the Z is roughly 2 years newer, everything feels very, very similar. Without going deeper into the research, I would even claim that the insulation and isolation are practically the same. At least audibly and tangibly, nothing or very little has changed here.
But what is immediately and massively noticeable is that the manual 4-speed transmission is VERY sporty compared to the automatic. Every little burst of gas makes the engine shoot forward very enthusiastically.
It also feels like there is significantly more power. However, this is only about the comparison between the 3-speed automatic and the 4-speed manual transmission. It is not a comparison with more powerful engines.
For me personally, the manual transmission was too stressful, almost too wild, on the route we drove in a convoy. The automatic simply spoiled me too much. Especially since I often missed the 5th gear in the second car.
Although the suspension was virtually the same as the test car before, but just the fact that we were sitting in the automatic first, got us pretty used to flying on a cloud over the roads.
Should I be given the choice to take one of the two cars home: I would prefer the automatic.

Of course, not everyone shares this opinion. And so Alan may also have something to say about it at this point.

Nice to get back into a manual trans car, and it immediately felt much better balanced across the front end. Springing and damping was still noticeably on the soft side and the same rear end roll into corners, but a very nice driving car and easy to live with. I think the seating position here was set lower than in some of the other cars(?) and that felt much more cosy for me, levelling up the push to the pedals a little more. For me, the most noticeable ergonomic differences of the LHD cars over RHD are the pedal offsets and the handbrake lever positioning. The handbrake lever position certainly requires a little extra effort and stretch to use - particularly on hill starts - but it can be adapted to. I can see why the lever was moved to the left side of the tunnel on the Works rally team's LHD cars. The pedal offset is also easy to adapt to, but - to me - the RHD layout seems to work better for brake and accelerator positioning in relation to the steering column and the body shell. I don't know how many other people notice the same thing, but they would probably need to compare LHD and RHD back-to-back to notice. I guess if you grew up with LHD Zs you would think they were 'normal' anyway, but for me - owning both - it is something I always notice. This car was otherwise a nice drive and the interior was quiet and better sound-proofed. I think the aftermarket wheels and slightly wider tyres will have contributed to the improved feel, and they certainly added to the 'period correct' aftermarket look. I liked this car, but it might have been due to the big contrast with the previous car!

To make the difference even bigger, we then drove Gustav's private car. An early Z with some noticeable modifications.
An L28 engine was installed and an SX transmission drove the power to the rear axle via 5 gears. The exhaust was also modified and seats from a Porsche were installed.
Together with power steering and other minor details, this car was by far the fastest, loudest and most modern.
If I had been blindfolded or didn't know what was going on under the hood, I wouldn't have guessed that there were carburetors installed. The engine of this rocket ran so smoothly, quietly and effortlessly.
Actually, that's a bit unfair to the other cars, but it shows the potential of the S30 platform and how big the difference really is to an unmodified car.
From the driving experience, the steering and the overall impression, I would say that the car was a good 15 years more modern.
Also, thanks to the modified suspension, which worked very well with the already mentioned steering, the car handled very precisely and effortlessly.

This car was the only one that I didn't drive, besides the EU model (in which I wasn't sitting at all). Here I had the honor of being driven by Jos.
But that wasn't a problem at all, because it allowed me to process my impressions better and pay close attention to everything.

But where do I start? First of all, a very important statement: the car is from October 1969 and is worlds away from driving exactly like the 1971 car!
These are two completely different cars. Simply, everything is different. And that's probably something that nobody who hasn't sat in it themselves would believe.
We'll ignore the little things, like the different interior mirror (the knob between day and night happens via a different button), the rear window (the heating is missing) or the significantly different C-pillar emblems.
We're supposed to be going to the driving impressions. And these are especially audible after the first few meters.
This car lacks a large part of the insulation and soundproofing in the interior. You get the feeling that every stone thunders through the underbody and has to end up somewhere in the trunk after the ride.
Through the resulting holes, you can also hear all the clacking and creaking and grinding from the differential and the transmission. In general, the car is significantly louder and you can hear and feel every gear.
Which is no wonder, since the transmission is also completely different and still has parallels to the Datsun Roadster.
The shifting is rough, loud and imprecise.
While I felt like I was in a car from the 80s in the 1971 Z, in the 1969 I felt like I was in a car from the 60s (which it was). It was incredible!
This was mainly due to the chassis and the thinner, less reinforced body.
It almost seemed as if the car was building up or even bending in corners. A funny feeling.
Unfortunately, I wasn't sitting in the EU final spec version, but I would be very interested to know whether the modified steering ratio and the anti-roll bar on the rear axle were noticeable compared to the other cars on this track. But I'm sure the other drivers will go into that.

Alan puts this into even more elegant words:

A great privilege to experience this precious early production car, restored to immaculate original specification. Immediately the car felt "light" and the relative lack of sound-deadening material was quickly noticeable with quite a lot of noise inside the cabin. However, I did not find that to be too much of a problem and in fact I rather enjoyed the more machine-like aural experience, a nicely muted whine from the transmission serving as the sound bed for our conversation. On the twisty sections of road, a lack of roll control was evident. On turn-in the rear rolled much more than the front and first of all this was slightly surprising and disconcerting. However, once you knew what to expect, it was possible to deal with it and adapt accordingly. Gear ratios were widely spaced, and overall gearing felt 'tall', whilst the steering rack ratio was "slow" and very light. My overall impression was that this car must have seemed like the most crazy value for money purchase at the time.

We started out in this car, which was perhaps the jump ahead in the evolution of the early Zs. The engineers at Nissan - including our fellow guest Mr. Miyazaki - had spent a lot of time and effort in refining the specifications of the "Euro" model to suit European driving conditions and tastes, and it showed. At once, it all felt very familiar to me - apart from being LHD - as my first two Zs were UK market HS30-Us, which are essentially very similar. Springs and damping were very well suited to the chosen test course and the beautiful rural roads around Buren, and body roll was well controlled by the combination of front and rear ARBs. Gearing too was really nice, and I was already a fan of the 'Servo' steel 5-speed synchro mesh transmissions (this car had an FS5C71-B) and 3.9:1 diff ratio combination, giving four closely-spaced ratios for the twisties and then an overdrive fifth for the highway. Steering rack ratio is 'fast' but feels not at all heavy with the standard steering wheel. The combination of front and the rear spoiler would have been a benefit at higher speeds on the highway too. What a great package. I could happily live with this car as an everyday driver.

There is no better way to describe it. But Alan would like to conclude by saying the following:

So that was it. Four cars, all sightly different. A good cross-section, but - in my dreams - I would have liked to have some RHD export and (especially) Japanese Domestic models alongside to represent the whole "family" of early variants. Somehow I hope that there will be an opportunity for that in the future, but my mind is already made up, and my foremost thought is, HOW DID THEY DO IT?! The stylists, designers, engineers and all other staff involved in creating these cars got it SO right, and in SO little time. It is an amazing achievement. These cars have a modest and understated sophistication that I find all the more remarkable in light of the fact that they came from a Japanese manufacturer in the late 1960s. Amazing. I have so much admiration for the people in bringing these cars to the world market. Thank you!


This trip was also something very special for Kats. And something educational. Miyzaki San was sitting in the passenger seat, who shared exciting details during the journey.

So let's read what he has to say:

For me, it was the second time I had driven a Euro-spec car. The first time was almost 20 years ago in the UK in the right-hand drive HS30 "UK 240Z". I was so impressed with how well the car handled and accelerated. This time I had the same experience as with the red EU car. This last Euro-spec car was the best performing car on the road during our test.

What impressed me so much during this test drive was the word of Miyazaki San. He immediately noticed the driving characteristics after just a few meters of driving.

He said, "Ah, that's it! This car is a Euro version!"
Miyazaki San was sitting in the passenger seat, but as the S30's test and development engineer, he felt every single movement of the car. Miyazaki San was so enthusiastic the whole time that I told him he would love to drive the car and asked him to take turns. But Miyazaki San said, “I haven't driven for many years, so don't worry, I'll enjoy the test drive in the passenger seats.“

He remembers testing a front spoiler on the high-speed test track: the spoiler for these EU cars. The effect of the front spoiler is almost the same as that of the G-nose.

But why was the spoiler made of flexible urethane? And why was it so high?

Miyazaki San explained to me that it was because of its usefulness in the parking lot. The team considered the height of the tire stopper.
They needed information about how tall it was. They measured one in the Tomei highway parking lot, which had just opened when they were developing.
In addition, they received information from Europe on what the stopper looked like. And the risk of hitting the stopper was also taken into account. So it had to be flexible.

I noticed a small thing about which I felt something strange: the passing light and turn signal lever. My finger was something short to operate the lever. I found the lever is just like the Japanese S30 cars. For export cars, the steering wheel has a deep dish, which makes the lever a lot far from the steering. 

So I was thinking the passing light and turn signal lever for export cars would have been angled to the steering wheel. However, it was not! 

That was the only thing I felt strange. Other than that, it was an unforgettable moment for me. I remember Miyazaki San’s happy face.