Pre-Production 240Z Show and Race Cars

The Three Cars

HLS30-00008: Show Car and Cover Car

HLS30-00008 began its life on display at the Los Angeles Auto Show. It was the car on the cover of the January 1970 issue of Road & Track, and in 1969 it went to the SCCA American Road Race of Champions (the Runoffs) at Daytona as a show car. There is even film of the red Z at Daytona that year.

Look closely at that cover and the car looks light gray, not red. Red photographed too dark on the black-and-white film of the day and hid the car’s lines, so the photos were lightened during processing. Nissan sent newspapers prints of a red 240Z in 1969, but in print it always came out light gray. Enthusiasts have argued for years about exactly how and why the color was adjusted for the black-and-white prints.

Racing with Bob and Mike Speakman

Bob Speakman raced a Datsun 1600 roadster in SCCA F Production, up against Bob Tullius and John Kelly of Group 44 and Bob Sharp from Connecticut. Running as an independent, he did very well at the 1968 Runoffs, and that result led to him buying HLS30-00008 from Datsun Competition (Dick Roberts) in 1970.

Bob and his son Mike stripped the show car to a bare shell and replaced every window except the windshield with Lexan. It started out as an SCCA regional car, moved up to national races in C Production, and then spent many years in the IMSA GTU series, including two runs at the 24 Hours of Daytona with Mike as one of the drivers.

Bob later sold the car to Dave Duda of Towson, Maryland, who raced it for a while before selling it to Tom Bork of Rochester, New York. Its last race before Tom bought it was the 1990 24 Hours of Daytona.

Doc B Racing and Restoration

Tom Bork founded Doc B Racing in 1991, starting with the purchase of HLS30-00008. After nearly twenty years of racing the car was in rough shape, and Tom spent three years restoring it as a C Production car for vintage racing. It then raced in vintage events for another fifteen years and more.

HLS30-00007: The Missing Car

The silver HLS30-00007 is still unaccounted for. It is said to have become a race car based in Los Angeles. Its owner ran into financial trouble, and one night the car disappeared from his shop. In the early 1990s the owner got in touch with Tom Bork and sent him some photos, and after that the trail went cold.

If you know anything about HLS30-00007 (or HLS30-00006), we’d love to hear from you on the XenonZcar forum. Owners of any S30 can add their car to the S30 Registry.