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03-13-2026 ATLAS Z UPDATE. A week or two ago, I got with Joshua who runs JP fiber shop and advertises on most of the Z car pages a lot. He is located in the Dominican Republic and makes fiberglass and carbon fiber parts. He made my fiberglass smooth cowl piece. He began a project for me. To make a roof, partial quarters, doors and partial front fenders out of carbon fiber, but just a thin sin.....one that could be trimmed and bonded over existing steel. The idea I have is to make it look like a "Paneled" paint job. Since my 260Z is part american hot rod, part street rod, part sports car, and part Japanese classic, I have used ideas from each genre in this build. To achieve the paneled look, I have had John cut-in, 1 inch around the border of each panel, to include the front fender to door gap areas, and these outlines will be in the factory Nissan #305 light metallic blue, as the cut outs for the door handles and locks, parking lights on the front and rear corners, etc will also show the color "underneath". The body line is the cut off point for the side pieces. The front fenders will remain blue on the tops, with a black windshield frame and top, but a fiber panel is also going on the top. The job is almost completed and then he will mail it to me. I will bond it with the SEM 50 second panel bond epoxy. It is a love it or hate it deal. I fully expect most will hate it/think it looks stupid.....so there's no need to tell me, but I know you will. It is unique....the car becomes "art". here are some pics of the process of making hte panels and a few pics of random cars to show the paneled paint jobs that inspired this. I will be adding my gloss black flares OVER the carbon panels and a black roundel on each door with the number 7 cut out. Click below for video: Main Video 1.mp4

Unrelated update but reasons as to why there's been a lack of updates to this thread: Got a new job that demands a lot more of my time so unfortunately less time to optimize the SLA conversion. Upside however is that I'm learning NX which seems to be some next level software. I think this design is going to take one more fundamental change to really get the dynamic geometries perfect but the work I have so far has been a pretty excellent starting point. The car is also back from the rust repair shop and the cage shop, needless to say my wallet is in a lot of pain at the moment (especially with the S54 being built) but we do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard and we hate money. Anyway, enjoy some photos of the cage in the meantime.