Apr 7thPopular Bosozoku cars: Nissan Fairlady S30

This week we have a very popular Bosozoku style car and I really had trouble with deciding which pictures would feature this item. This week we feature the very popular Nissan Fairlady Z S30:

Yanky style Fairlady S30 (with stars and stripes)
Most of the Fairlady Zs I came accross were Yanky style like the one above. It reflects how the Bosozoku cars were styled in the late 80s!

Especially this one is very well known:

Yanky Mate! Fairlady S30 replica
This is a Yanky Mate! replica of the Shakotan Boogie manga/anime. This Fairlady S30 featured in two colors in the manga: blue (early) and yellow (late). With the craze around Shakotan Boogie in the early 90s you can imagine that replicas of this car are very popular.

Another style which can be found in many numbers are the Gran Chan styled Fairladies:

Gran Chan style Fairlady S30
With big fender extenders, headlight covers and the bonnet/lip having smooth aerodynamic lines it really reflects the Fairladies used during races in the late 70s. Very beautifully styled!

And of course we have the Bosozoku styled Fairlady, but they are bit rarer than the other two styles so I only post a 280ZX:

Bosozoku style Fairlady 280ZX
This 280ZX model has a lot of fins, spoilers, ventilation holes and a really nice horn! With its paiting scheme it really looks bad ass Bosozoku styled, but its styling is not over the top. Good example in my opinion.

The Nissan Fairlady Z S30 (also known as the 240Z, 260Z and 280Z overseas) came out in Japan as the successor of the 60s Nissan Fairlady. This was a small compact roadster competing with European roadsters and it sold quite well in Japan and overseas. Nissan decided it needed a replacement for the roadster and teamed up with Yamaha. The Yamaha prototype did not meet the expectations of Nissan and Nissan terminated the cooperation and Yamaha turned to Toyota and created the 2000GT out of this prototype.

Nissan then decided it needed a more Americanized GT car which was stylish, innovative, fast, reliable and most importantly sharing parts with other Nissans to make it inexpensive! This became the Fairlady Z and in 1969 the production of this car started:

Factory stock Fairlady Z S30
As you can see: in stock form it may look awfull today, but back then it was one of the most stylish GT cars ever!

In Japan the car was launched with two engines: a 6 cylinder SOHC L20A (shared with the Bluebird) outputting 130hp and a limited run called Z432 featured the high performance 6 cylinder DOHC S20 (shared with the Skyline GTR) outputting 160 hp.
Later in Japan the limited run of the 240ZG appeared: a L24 (initially used for export market) powered Fairlady Z with a new aero dynamic nose, wide overfenders, acrylic headlight covers (like the one in the first picture), fender mirrors and a rear spoiler. This 240ZG was meant to homologate an uprated version for Group 4 racing. The nose was later on sold as a seperate option called the “G-nose”.

The Fairlady Z S30 appeared in many rally and circuit race events and became just about as famous as the Hakosuka Skyline GTR.

Factory racing Fairlady Z S30

Nowadays the Fairlady Z still has a huge following, especially after the animation version of Wangan Midnight featuring a blue Devil Z and Hakosukas suffering from insane price increases. Popular engine swaps are either the bigger engines L24, L26 and L28 or the whole drivetrain with the RB25 of a Skyline GTS.

Personally I really would like to own one someday: those Z cars are just awesome! 🙂