IF YOU wanted a coupe in the 1970s the choice was pretty straightforward: Ford Capri or Opel Manta.

The Japanese coupe crowd - early Celica, Colt Celeste - were a pretty unassuming bunch. Well, pretty unassuming, that is, apart from one - the Datsun 240Z.

With its lithe looks and punchy six-cylinder engine, the 240Z was a sports coupe more than capable of showing a clean pair of heels to a well-driven Capri 3.0S. Body and Doyle wouldn’t have stood a chance if the bad guys had shopped for a Datsun.

That’s not really surprising given that Datsun’s engineers had benchmarked their coupe against the Jaguar E-Type, the Alfa Spider and the Porsche 911.

Incredibly, the 240Z had been conceived ten years earlier, when the petite Silvia Coupe failed to find a worldwide audience because Americans thought it was too small. Datsun asked the Silvia’s designer, Count Albrecht von Goertz, to come up with something a bit… meatier.

When the Count handed in his ideas the company’s new sports car chief, Yoshihiko Matsuo, took them back to the drawing board and came up with an outline for the 240Z. Company bosses gave it their full backing and the car was the undoubted star of the 1969 Tokyo Motor Show.

In a bid to wow those Stateside buyers, the 240Z was positively dripping with standard equipment. The driver reclined in high-backed sports seats, grasped a wooden steering rim and looked down into stylish analogue instruments. A full set of ancillary gauges kept the driver informed of the fuel level, battery state, oil and coolant temperatures and the windows opened and closed with electric lifters.

The layout was rather haphazard - the choke was hidden away near the handbrake, for example - but it was no more or less confusing than the usual chaotic placement seen in the 240Z’s European competition.

The 2.3-litre six-cylinder engine was a development of the four-cylinder unit nestling beneath the Bluebird saloon’s bonnet (which was itself inspired by a Mercedes straight six). An aluminium cylinder head, bigger valves, a hotter cam, a higher compression ratio and twin SU Hitachi carburettors helped boost the power output to 151bhp (a 911 of the same period had 125bhp).

The engine loved to rev and the 6,500rpm orange line (with the red line starting 500rpm later) was unusually high for a car of the time. Mind you, despite the oversquare dimensions, peak power was reached at 5,700rpm and there was little to be gained by hanging on.

Beneath the svelte bodywork Datsun saved a few quid by using the unloved Laurel’s platform but bespoke suspension meant the 240Z handled as well as it looked.

In Japan, the engine’s maximum displacement had to be kept beneath 2.0-litres to avoid punitive taxes, so domestic drivers were offered a single camshaft four-cylinder unit or a twin-cam six.

The export engine choice was fitted with a five-speed gearbox as standard (the Japanese ‘four made do with a four-speeder from the unloved Gloria saloon) - an unusual decision at a time when even the 3.0-litre Capri had to make do with four ratios.

Mind you, the steep launch price of £2,288 left the 240Z tilting at Porsches and Alfas not mass market Fords. In its first year on sale Datsun sold just 602 examples to curious UK drivers.

The Northern Echo:

The car was more successful in its main overseas market - America - where the pricing was particularly keen. One, possibly apocryphal, story goes that Datsun executives decided on the price by taking an average of the prices suggested by journalists who wrote about the international launch. If so, they did their fellow drivers a favour by keeping their suggestions realistic.

By the end of 1970 there was a six-month waiting list and five years later Datsun was still selling more than 50,000 a year.

In the UK the high price and suspicion of Japanese imports meant just 1611 found buyers between 1970 and 1974 when Datsun withdrew the 240Z from the market.

Today only a handful have survived and those that have achieved classic status - a fitting conclusion for a car that broke the mould.