North American vintage z car auction

[Albrecht]

I think with this car we have to compare it to the VZ program cars. It seems they're not all the same? Fit and finish not the same. Not 'factory' finished.

Exactly. The 'Z Store' program/'Vintage Z Program' cars were rebuilt in a handful of businesses and not strictly to ex-Factory standard. They apparently mixed and matched major components and didn't have a philosophy of maintaining strict build date accuracy. A number of repro parts were used.

All of which is fine as long as they are understood for what they were and are. Our reference points are the factory-correct details, and the VZ cars are compared to that in order to better understand them.



Generally speaking, the north American 'scene' for these cars exists in its own bubble. Their discussions of rarity and value tend not to take into account anything that's outside that bubble. There are - of course - honourable exceptions, but 99.99% of those people wouldn't include any 'not sold here' variants in their thinking because they are simply not on their radar. The guy talking about the VZ cars as being "the rarest Nissan ever made" wouldn't know what a 432-R was if it ran over him.

Edited to add: I've personally seen THREE 'Vintage Z Program' cars in Japan and they were all beautifully done. A very, very good standard of finish that pretty much anyone would be happy with. Body fit and finish/paintwork in particular was outstanding in my opinion.

 

[Pete]

So you think one or both of the photos in your first post have been photoshopped, or what? I'm saying it's just an awkward colour, differing conditions and - more technically - camera can't cope.

Would've got back to you sononer but had to pop out to get some messages. Anyway, just ran these pics past our resident photoshop expert as this sort of thing is outwith my sphere of knowledge. He's not convinced of my assertion that the second pic has been photoshopped. He reckons that the difference may be due to the light coming through the opaque garage door. Being Scottish and a lifetime resident of Scotland, I'm sure you'll understand that intense ,powerful sunlight, and it's mysterious almost magical effects would be way beyond my ken. He did agree the bumper was squint but.

 

[uk66fastback]

Second pic has definitely had some kind of PShop work done to it in my opinion ... shadows/highlights I reckon ... I could do a comparison on another shot if need be ...

 

[RawlinSTR]

Second pic has definitely had some kind of PShop work done to it in my opinion ... shadows/highlights I reckon ... I could do a comparison on another shot if need be ...

+ to this, the dynamic range in that picture is far too impressive to be straight from a camera IMO.

P.S. Thanks Alan and Pete, your discussion had me laughing out loud at work today, it was a proper little thriller

 

[SeanDezart]

What I'm talking about when I say 'correct' is about understanding our base lines, our datum points. It's useful to know how the cars were when they left the factory so that we can better judge our starting or finishing points. If people are going to try to attain an 'ex-Factory' level of detail (some do, and the 'Vintage Z Program' car now being auctioned on BaT is being compared to that) then some of us might find it interesting to study and try to understand the reference points for model variant and production date.

Alternatively, if some of us don't give a damn about molly-coddled show-cars and prefer to drive ours, preferably in someway modified - should we still understand base-lines, datum and reference points and production dates for model (and market) variants ?

 

[Alphabettispaghetti]

Theres some people on there who seem to go against darwin's theory of evolution.

 

[Albrecht]

Alternatively, if some of us don't give a damn about molly-coddled show-cars and prefer to drive ours, preferably in someway modified - should we still understand base-lines, datum and reference points and production dates for model (and market) variants ?

That would be an ecumenical matter.

 

[SacCyclone]

Exactly. The 'Z Store' program/'Vintage Z Program' cars were rebuilt in a handful of businesses and not strictly to ex-Factory standard. They apparently mixed and matched major components and didn't have a philosophy of maintaining strict build date accuracy. A number of repro parts were used.

All of which is fine as long as they are understood for what they were and are. Our reference points are the factory-correct details, and the VZ cars are compared to that in order to better understand them.



Generally speaking, the north American 'scene' for these cars exists in its own bubble. Their discussions of rarity and value tend not to take into account anything that's outside that bubble. There are - of course - honourable exceptions, but 99.99% of those people wouldn't include any 'not sold here' variants in their thinking because they are simply not on their radar. The guy talking about the VZ cars as being "the rarest Nissan ever made" wouldn't know what a 432-R was if it ran over him.

Edited to add: I've personally seen THREE 'Vintage Z Program' cars in Japan and they were all beautifully done. A very, very good standard of finish that pretty much anyone would be happy with. Body fit and finish/paintwork in particular was outstanding in my opinion.

Totally agree with your comment about the North American bubble.
I too would have been part of that 99.99% had I not joined this forum several years ago and got a good education on the differences in models exported from Japan.
That said, the discussions / comments on BAT can be informative, laughable, or just plain incorrect.

 

[uk66fastback]

 

[Pete]

Yes, that's the sort of effect that I thought had been done. Did you use photoshop, was it just a matter of applying a 'filter' or was it a more manual process?

 

[uk66fastback]

Shadows/highlights in PShop so a manual process ... I use PShop everyday so knew it was done via that for sure! You can play about with the colour and get infinite variations.

 

[Pete]

$101240, not sure if that was for the green one or the yellow one.

 

[red baron]

that was for the yellow one