Hi
My 2 cents.
I am certain that there were factory lightweights - Dick Roberts was really
fussy about who he passed things too - BRE was originally an outfit backed by
Nissan Tokyo, not Nissan USA, and it is well known that he and Pete Brock did
not get along - PB would have been the last person to benefit from any
lightweights that went to the US - and if the shells went to Nissan at
Gardena I can quite see that Bob Sharp on the East Coast was not sent one -
he was doing very nicely on the East Coast. Until BRE came along, Datsun was
struggling in the West where they wanted a higher profile - the Datsun
Racing Team's 2000s had done nothing - the Jack Scoville lightweight went
originally to a guy in the MidWest (apparently a friend of Dick) and,
following poor results, Dick decided it should go to Jack. Jack is in no
doubt that this was a 'factory thin' car.
Also, I had the honour of going through a secretly stored factory 240Z Rally
car inch by inch two years ago. The car had been completely stripped for
restoration but retained its original paint and some rally decals - it had
not been messed with at all. The shell was super thin, the fenders too, it
had fiberglass hood and doors (again with the original decals) - and there
were loads of little tricks to the shell that differentiated it from a stock
240Z. The rear of the shell had some similarities with the rear of the
Japanese spec Z432 and 432R, but was still not the same. The side windows had
the same 'nissan' etchings on as the glass but were perspex and like the
Monte Roadsters there was a dual wiring loom if anything failed. Super trick
car that to the rally tech inspectors looked like a stock 240Z - now if I
could only turn up a Monte 2000 roadster.
Also, last month I saw probably the last genuine unused original early 240Z
shell in existence, that was apparently destined for BRE but never got there,
for whatever reason - even the wiring loom retainers were still straight and
it had never had anything bolted on it - although it was just a shell it had
a serial number in the first 200. Amazing. Unfortunately, it's not for sale.
Rob
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