From its debut as the 2.4L 240Z in the 1970 model year, the displacement of Datsun's sports car increased through the 260Z of 1974 and finally to the 280Z for '76... (well, nerds will insist it was a '75½.)
The reason behind the displacement bumps was that tightening emissions standards meant lower compression ratios and that meant that in order to keep output in the same ballpark you needed more cubic under the hood.
New for 1977 was an optional 5-speed manual transmission. Four-speeds were still standard, and that still-exotic fifth gear would set the buyer back $165, which is the equivalent of over nine hundred bucks in today's coin.
The first four gears had the same ratios, and the final drive remained unchanged, so while there wasn't a benefit in acceleration times, the overdrive 0.86:1 top gear permitted more relaxed freeway cruising and offered a boost to gas mileage. Road & Track recorded 21.5 MPG over their mileage test loop which, while it didn't feature much freeway cruising, was still a two mile per gallon improvement over the four-speed car.
The 2.8L SOHC inline six had L-Jetronic fuel injection and was rated at 170 SAE Net horsepower and could propel the Z-car to sixty in 9.4 seconds and through the quarter in 17.3 seconds at 81 mph.
The Light Blue Metallic car in the photo was snapped with a Fujifilm X-E1 and a Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 lens in September of 2019.
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