Or in other words, "Upon which freighter will your beloved Z be brought to the US"

Here are my thoughts.

1. According to ZISME, the Z's are manufactured at the Nissan Oppama plant in Japan.
2. The closest port to Oppama is Yokohama, less than 15 miles away.
3. Maritime freight schedules confirm car-carrying freighters travel from Yokohama to Los Angeles.

The three ships which I beleive will be transporting all the Z's across the Pacific are:

United Spirit
World Spirit
Hual Traveller

Both United Spirit and World Spirit can transport 3,199 vehicles each. Not sure of Hual Traveller's capacity.

Why do I think these ships will be the ones? Because they are owned or operated by an affiliate of Nissan.

So if the above is correct, and if you are anticipating your Z will be one of the first to arrive (we can all hope, can't we), I think it will arrive based on the attached schedule.

Assuming Nissan isn't way ahead of schedule, we can eliminate the first arrivals from having our Z's. But maybe we can hope for that 7/16 arrival to have the first shipment. Or maybe the 8/4 arrival. Who knows for sure.

As for the 5/27 arrival, well, I think this ship has some of the new colors we haven't seen yet. We've already heard tips (reliable tips, IMO) that there will be colors available next week.

 

Sorry Tim, for deleting your first reply (and any others who posted while I was editing).

I was trying to figure out a way to get the text in columns, and, well, I had to start over...lol

 

Man, you do your research Scaf!

I'm curious as to whether any other ports will be used, like Houston, Baltimore, Columbia, or New York. I was talking to my dealer a few weeks ago and he thought East Coast cars would ship to an East Coast port. He didn't seem to think Nissan would truck them cross country.

It seems like it would take something like 3 times as long to travel by ship from Yokohama to USA East Coast vs Los Angeles with the whole Pananma canal thing.

So, if Yok to LA takes about 18 days, does Yok to Baltimore take 54? Fifty-four days back from 8/1 is 6/8. Any Nissan-affiliated car carriers leaving Yokohama for USA East Coast around that time? My dealer told me Nissan changed my car's estimated delivery date from early August to (late?) July. I wonder if any carriers are leaving Yok in early June (next week!)?

 

Again, I'm just thinking out loud. I don't think they will ship cars via ship from Japan to the east coast. If they did, they would have to offload them onto other ships, because there is no time in these schedules for these ships to make the treck from LA to an east coast port. It's about the same distance from Japan to LA, as it is from LA to NY (via the Panama canal). I figured this out by using the globe in my office. Japan to LA is the width of my palm, from my thumb to my extended pinky finger tip. LA to NY is same distance, when I route my hand through Panama :-)

(I promise the rest of data is more reliable than the above)

By land, they can transport these cars from LA to East Coast in under a week. Keep the ships moving back and forth across the Pacific.

Other interesting info I found.

The ships arrive and then leave port in 24 hours (again, keep them moving to make money). They use Ro/Ro to be efficient (Roll on/Roll Off). A bunch of workers drive the cars off the ship, park them, then take a shuttle back onto the ship, repeat. I'm guessing 10 minutes to offload a car, and get back to the ship (and I think that would be quick!) If they had 50 workers doing this non-stop, it would take 10 hours non-stop to drive all these cars off.

Also, regarding port-modifications: Here is a pic I found of cars at the port, for possible port modifications (we've heard that some of the options we have ordered are installed at port). I didn't it believe it, but I guess it is true. The caption for this pic was "Accessory Installation".

 

I seem to recall seeing a post from someone mentioning a port in Seattle WA as well. Does Nissan have an office in Seattle and if so, could the Z's be delivered there as well? I hope I didn't jsut make more work for you Scaf (Yokahoma to Seattle shipping schedules).

 

Bonz

I queried ZISME on a possible Tacoma/Seattle drop-off point, and he advised just LA. But some of the above vessels do have a Tacoma/Seattle stop, 3 days before they arrive in LA.

I've actually had these freighters schedules for about a week onw, ever since LowFuel and I put on our Sherlock Holmes hats. But before I posted them, I wanted to eliminate the other ports that these ships stop at, that didn't seem pertinent to us. They all actually make stops at 3 other ports in Japan, one in Taiwan, and one in Vancouver BC. (I didn't think to ask about the Vancouver stop for our Canadian members...sorry...will try and clear up)

 

I didn't figure the 3 ships you listed continued on to the east coast. It doesn't seem efficient to stop in LA and then go down to the Panama canal and north to the US east coast. Are there other ships besides these that go to an east coast port?

It does seem more practical to truck cars from LA to points east. But holy cow, what a logistical nightmare keeping track of all those cars and where they go! I would assume, if Nissan does truck them east, that from the port the cars would go to several regional distribution centers. Just guessing.

 

This is the company who is responsible to make that logistical nightmare go smooth:

DAS Auto Services

I think you are right about regional distribution centers. Rail the cars to these centers, then truck them to the dealers. Maybe asking our dealers would shed some light on this part of the transportation equation.

 

Scafreman....i'm in total awe of you! First, taking pictures of the Z at NNA headquarters. Now doing a through investigation into were the cars are going to arrive. Damn. Good job. I wish i could help in some way but don't know where to start.


By the way, did you ever find out if that was the designer in those pics?

 

Rail, right. I forgot about rail.

Thanks for the link. I added to my vocabulary:

ste·ve·dore (stv-dôr, -dr) n.
One who is employed in the loading or unloading of ships.

tr. & intr.v. ste·ve·dored, ste·ve·dor·ing, ste·ve·dores
To load or unload the cargo of (a ship) or to engage in the process of loading or unloading such a vessel.

Although my name is Steve, I have nothing to do with loading ships. I swear.

 

As a matter of reference my Honda S2000

Port of Entry - San Diego
Rail to Oklahoma City

Build Date - Last week of January 00
Dealer received VIN# February 12, 00
Off Truck at dealer March 6, 00

Southern state cars - TX, Florida, etc. come into So. Cal. ports and rail East
Northern state cars - Il, NY, etc. come into Washington state ports and rail East

You would think Nissan shipping would be similar.

 

Damn you guys are dedicated. I agree that it seems unlikely cars would be dropped off at East Coast destinations. By ship I mean. That extra journey (through the Canal) would be very long. I've driven by Long Beach plenty of times...to think of seeing a HUGE parking lot full of Z's. Man, that would be one spy pic that somebody has to get. Shouldn't be too hard either. There's usually a field full of Maximas or Altimas out there.

 

I agree with previous posts that these cars won't go via boat to the east coast.

They will be transported to the east coast via rail from Los Angeles. The trains that take these cars travel by rail about 1 mile from my house. Also nearby is a huge parking lot (just one of many) where they store and sort the cars before being transported by more rail or truck.

That's why every new car has a few miles on it: they drive them from the ship to a nearby parking lot, or maybe directly onto rail cars, they then store/sort them in other parking lots, then they get back on rail to their final rail destination before they are loaded on trucks with car carriers. If they need to be stored/sorted a couple times, you could easily rack up a couple miles in transport.

I wouldn't worry too much about some lead foot messing up your baby for two reasons:
A) If the car transporters treated the cars they were in charge of poorly they would be out of a job quicker than a L.A. hood can steal your wallet
B) These guys drive cars all day, including Beemers, Benzes, Corvettes, etc. Your 350Z, as special as she is to you, is just one more hurdle standing between the transporter-parking-lot-driver and that beer after work. He might move it around efficiently, but he's not going to mess around, burn rubber, rev it excessively, or do anything else that takes any time.

I see these guys moving cars all the time, and they just drive them off the train and park them.

If you want to take a look at a picture of one of the lots, just run mapquest and aerial photo look at the SE corner where Azusa intersects Valley in City of Industry. That big lot is one of these parking lots.

 

Scafremon, you rule! I'm the 6th preorder of 10 at my dealership, so I guess that my wait will be longer than most of you first on the lists. Would it not be nice if we could actually fly to Japan, pick up the car as it comes off of the assembly line, drive it on the "wrong" side of the road for a week vacation and then have it shipped back (like BMW pickup in Germany)? Then we combine this with a pick-up in LA as the car gets off of the dock and another week-long drive home cross-country. Of course by the time we hit Montana it will have been broken-in enough to test maximum speed.

Talking of car carriers... this Memorial Day weekend I was following a car carrier that was completely loaded with new GMC/Chevy cars and trucks, and at the top (2nd level) rear of it was sitting a Suburban. The weight was so great that the rear looked to be bending, and the Suburban was swinging up and down as the driver went over the ruts in the road. I had no idea those top supports were supposed to flex! Imagine a small boat floating on the ocean, and that's what that 5400+ pounds of steel and rubber looked like.

Needless to say I hit the gas and sped as far ahead of that thing as safely possible. You know that there has got to be some point where the Suburban goes flying off, and I definitely did not want to be the guy with a Chevy Suburban giving me a lap-dance.

 

Yeah, I would say Chevy Suburban lap-dances suck.

Even just a Chevy Yukon lap-dance wouldn't be all that great....

 

Some posed (I think Scafremon) that the ships from Japan can carry over 3000 cars at a time.