... but the original 1964 CSP311 desighed by a german guy based on a BMW was a great looking car....
Wasn't designed by a german guy based on a BMW. Was designed by a Japanese guy to look Italian on a roadster chassis. The german guy came along later and help with a few changes to the design and how to make full scale clay mock-ups, but at least equal credit really needs to go to the Japanese guy (Kazou Kimura) that designed the car (he also did the 1000 coupe), before the German added his 2c worth. Seems to me that Nissan wanted to cash in on the cachet the German designer had (he designed the BMW 503 and 507) and were happy to let people think he designed it, or the exact details were lost in translation, or the german guy was good at letting people think he designed it. He also let people think he designed the 240Z, the Toyota 200GT, and the Porsche 911, which can't be bad for his New York based design agency's business at the time
Cant let the truth get in the way of a good story.
I've even seen magazine articles from 1966 saying it was designed in Europe.
No wonder everyone is confused on who they should give credit to.