240Z: Recreating an iconic Fairlady Z Press Photo in Tokyo

At the recent S30.world Japan tour Car meet, Our man Endo-san brought a nice old Nissan advertising canvas printed photo of an Automatic transmission Fairlady Z, which was meant to be hung in Nissan Dealerships showroom back in time.

We liked the photo a lot, and some of the team were able to figure out the original location in Tokyo, where the photo was taken.

A rather spontaneous idea grew quickly and a few days later we found ourselves in that exact spot, where the original photo was taken with the aim to recreate that photo with Kats Z432.

The problem was, unfortunately, that we didn’t have any shooting permission. The place is well known for fashion shootings and whatnot, but they would only allow us to do it with a permission, which must be requested long way in advance.

At least they allowed us to take a few quick photos of the building (without bringing any car inside) and The manager even made a nice group photo of us on the stairs, before we were politely asked to leave.
We didn’t want to make any more noise so we left, slightly disappointed. But then Florian had the idea to complete the photoshoot elsewhere and then photoshop it together.
So a few hours later we had Kats car set up in front of the Hotel in Yokohama and had Jos bring his camera gear to recreate the original photo with the blurred walking person in front of it.

Once we had figured out the shutter speed, angle, and whatnot to get as close as possible to the original, the photoshooting started.

Each of us got the change to be the “walking person” and have their personalized photo reproduction. Florian then spent some time to photoshop the car with the person into the original Photo of the building.

I think the result is pretty cool and really close to the original. Obviously we could have done better if we had to spend a few hours with the car in front of the actual building, but at the end the result is pretty good. Thanks to Jos’ photo and Florian’s Photoshop skills.

A little fun fact: The Z432 in the photo was never actually sold with an Automatic transmission, but most people probably won’t notice this little detail anyway. Thanks to Florian, Jos and all the others for the great time, and (I think?) Jeff for finding the original location. Great Job and I love the photo as a great memory about or trip to Japan!