The Original Nissan Z Car Was Never Supposed To Happen

Nissan sportscars at ZCON. Photo credit: Kurt Bradley

It All Started With A Pen

Matsuo’s interest in design started in middle school, when he got his hands on a Parker 51 fountain pen. Japan was still rebuilding itself after World War II, making simple, utilitarian objects, whereas countries like the USA had the resources to put tons of effort into a simple pen design, Matsuo explained through an interpreter. America was dreamlike and exciting to Matsuo, who saw American items like cars and pens admired in his own country. To catch up and become a first-class nation, Matsuo believed the Japanese would have to take more pride in their design, and make enjoyable everyday objects. Nissan used to badge their exports as Datsuns, including the models Matsuo worked on. Photo credit: Kurt Bradley

Asking The Right Questions

The Japanese automotive industry was growing in much the same way as everything else at the time—often through copying existing foreign designs. Nissan got its start, for example, building licensed car designs from British automaker Austin. But the Japanese auto industry as a whole was quickly growing and now selling cars around the world. Matsuo recognized that at a young age, so he went into cars. Nissan didn’t even have a design department in its earliest days. One of Nissan’s early attempts to make good design a priority was to let Pininfarina design the 1960s 411 Bluebird. But that didn’t resonate with Matsuo. Much to his manager’s dismay, he pointed it out. Matsuo explained, through his interpreter:

For the second-generation Bluebird, they contracted Pininfarina to design the 411. When the design blueprint came to [Matsuo], he looked at it and went “I don’t think so.” Then his boss, who’s a big guy said, “What are you talking about? This is a world-class artist...and who are you to criticize the model design of a world-class artist?”

Turns out, Matsuo was the person who knew what he was talking about. When the 411 Bluebird went to market, it didn’t sell well. Nissan’s corporate leadership turned to Matsuo—since he criticized it, he would be in charge of fixing it. Matsuo’s biggest beef was with the rear end of the Bluebird. It was angled downward like many of Pininfarina’s contemporary designs for Peugeot. This made the trunk smaller, less usable and less attractive. “It looked more like somebody squatting on the toilet,” Matsuo said of the 411's rear. Matsuo angled it up as an important part of his fix for the refreshed 411. But he didn’t think that was enough, so he took a cue from European cars to add a circular speedometer, bucket seats and a floor shifter—much more like a sports car. The Bluebird also received a much-needed bump in power from the addition of twin carburetors. While Matsuo’s bosses thought these additional changes went beyond his role as a designer, the engineering department approved of all of them. This model became the Bluebird SSS (for Super Sports Sedan) and it was a great commercial success despite selling for around twice the price of the original Bluebird. A 1966 Bluebird 1300SS, after Matsuo fixed the “squatting” rear design. Photo credit: Nissan

Nissan’s Strange ‘Reward’

To reward Matsuo for fixing the Bluebird’s slumping sales, Nissan named him the head of design over the Datsun Roadster at a Nissan subsidiary called Nissan Shatai. Nissan Shatai’s main function was producing auto bodies, but it also handled Nissan’s sports car at the time. Worse yet, the way Nissan Shatai made cars was woefully outdated. When Matsuo got there, workers were still pushing cars around by hand instead of moving them along on a modern assembly line. What they needed instead was a low-cost grand touring (or ‘GT’) car—one with more space and a solid roof—the likes of which just didn’t exist at the time. Sure, there were Jaguar E-Types, Porsche 911s and Ferraris, but they were unaffordable for most people. British automakers were starting to make enclosed roadsters like the little MGB GT and Triumph GT6, but Matsuo envisioned a step up from that. Matsuo wanted a GT sports car for the common man. A 240Z race car at ZCON. Photo credit: Kurt Bradley

Doing Things Backwards

Normally, designers at Japanese car companies don’t propose new cars, Matsuo explained. It’s simply not their place in the wider hierarchy of how things work. New models usually come from a corporate planner, who eventually works a request down to a design department. Because the Z car didn’t follow the usual processes for getting a new model approved, Matsuo had to personally chase down the work on the 240Z to see it through production himself. It was a design that was never asked for by corporate that completely originated from Matsuo’s design department, so none of Nissan’s usual processes seemed to apply. But the higher-ups gave Matsuo the unexpected leeway to design what he wanted when they “promoted” him to Nissan Shatai: free time. Matsuo used the privilege of working on next to nothing to design what he wanted: a GT car aimed at the U.S. market, with enough luggage space to travel across the country and a fixed roof usable in all kinds of weather. “As [Matsuo] goes back and thinks about this now, he is amazed that they were able to do this much without the knowing how many they were actually going to sell, or the budget that was [to be] allocated,” Matsuo’s interpreter explained. Matsuo also had to make this new GT car affordable, so they got to work modernizing Nissan Shatai’s work processes. He wanted to produce at least 3,000 cars a month, with big ideas of going after the American market at a time when many Americans felt Japanese cars were tiny, cheaply built and underpowered. Naturally, the higher-ups at Nissan corporate thought he was insane.

Many Possibilities For One Car

The first “Model A” prototype sketch of what would eventually become the 240Z was a fastback, but it had slightly different proportions than the final product. Japan taxes cars by physical size and engine displacement. Cars less than five and a half feet wide with engines smaller than two liters fit into the lowest class for taxation. Taxes double with the next size up, so this proto-Z was originally designed to be smaller, with a four-cylinder engine to fit the regulations. The car, of course, was ultimately deemed the “Z,” however—named such for a naval flag that means “Attack!” or “Go!” Matsuo explains the early race car Z sketch, which was penned by his assistant Akio Yoshida. Photo credit: Kurt Bradley It’s fitting, as Matsuo also wanted to make a car that could win races. Not only was another early design sketch of the Z a race car, but the car’s interior design reflected the Z car’s need to go racing. Vital controls and chokes were placed within reach of a driver in a racing harness. Matsuo pushed for some controls to be integrated into the stalks behind the wheel for easier reach as well. That’s standard now, but was revolutionary at the time. Clay models were made, and Matsuo’s team even did aerodynamics testing, albeit with quarter-size scale models. Nissan didn’t have a full-size wind tunnel at the time. Matsuo wanted the front windshield to be curved more for less wind resistance, but was ultimately shot down by Nissan’s glass manufacturer.