| One of the Z Club of Houston members sent me this today, and I thought y'all might enjoy a little Z history... ORIGINAL EMAIL:
>sorry to bother your list, but i used to be a '73 510 owner. a
>co-worker and i got into a discussion about the history of the letter
>'z' attached to the 240, 260, etc. is there really a person's name or
>something that the z stands for or is it simply a model letter that was
>picked due to its sound or something. RESPONSE:
Hi Chris: Nissan Design used an Alpha-numeric numbering system for it's Project
Files. (hard to file documents/document folders in a specific order
using kanji symbols). At the end of 1965 Nissan reorganized their in-house design center
and Mr. Yoshihiko Matsuo was appointed to head up the new "Sports
Car Design Center". In that capacity his first assignment was to
start the development and design of a new sports car aimed at the US
market. As all other alpha characters had previously been used - he
assigned the next Project Name/Number - and "Project Z" was started. When it came time to market the car - top management at Nissan Motors
Japan wanted to retain the "Fairlady" name for their line of sports
cars. Mr. Yutaka Katayama however, then head of Nissan Motors USA,
did not feel that was the best name to market a sports car with, in
the US market. So "Project Z" became the "Fairlady Z" in Japan - and the name
Fairlady was dropped for the US Market. In it's place Nissan USA
used the engine size as the designation (much the same as the Datsun
1600 and Datsun 2000 roadsters did here). So Datsun 240Z was agreed
to for the North American Market. I meet Mr. Matsuo and he confirmed that the Project File was indeed
the origin of the "Z" - but said it was Mr. K that selected it over
the brand name "Fairlady". FWIW,
Carl
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