Reminiscing about good times

[ZiptiePoweredâ„¢]

Anyone got a car that got away? I've had three Zs in my life. A 79 280zx, a 74 260z (L28et), and a 78 280z. Sad stories for all of them, first one I was a teenager and the place I used to live at crushed my car because I couldn't get it running. I got in an accident so I ended up selling my 260z to a Z guy that was local at the time who I knew could fix it (I lived in the same place at the time and they would have crushed it for sure). My most recent Z I got in 2016 but I sold it because I was getting married and needed the money to get a place just for me and my girlfriend at the time and maybe start a family. 

 

We ended up getting divorced back in 2019 and I really regret selling it. The car had so much potential. I really miss that 78, I was so hopeful that I could turn it around and make it my dream car. This is back in the day when Zs were still cheap. 

 

I recently got a Miata and as great as the car is (mine is bone stock and was adult owned with full records so not beat to hell), but it's just not the same. Hopefully I can pick one up eventually, but I think I'll be priced out if I don't get one in the next 3-5 years. What I could get for 2-5k is 10k now, a 10k car is 20k now. It makes sense, it's just the market and they're getting rarer and rarer. I just never feel "right" unless I'm driving a Z, I used to think this was a boomer thing (no offense) where you would think back at the good times with your old cars. But seriously, the happiest I've ever been is in a Z even though my Miata is just as fun to drive. There is just something about the Z cars that just has so much soul. 

 

Hope you don't mind me posting these videos. They're old so don't worry not trying to sell my car, they're just the two videos I have.  One very hopeful and one not so much.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SFq-lShjlY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlXbsyW8pPY

 

Edited June 14, 2021 by ZiptiePoweredâ„¢

[Michael]

Miatas are fun, and contrary to popular prejudice, they succeed admirably as daily drivers, assuming that one doesn't have kids or voluminous possessions to lug around.  But they just don't have the level of power that I'd consider to be necessary even for comparatively sedate urban driving.  This is spoken as a guy who's daily-driven first-generation Miatas for nearly a dozen years.  Worse yet, Miatas don't lend themselves to engine swaps, the way that Zs do.  They're well-optimized for their stock engines.  Small engine compartments and frail chasses require substantial creativity to be workable with a strong swapped engine.  Yes, it's been done successfully before, and I have have the utmost respect for those who've done say an LS V8 swap into an NA Miata (and would love to buy such a car turnkey!).  It's hard... much harder than in an S30 Z.  There's really no such thing as a JTR Chevy V8 swap-book for Miatas.

 

Ziptie, you make an excellent point about having to sell cars if lacking the resources to store them!  Recently I sold my house... a sprawling place in the country, where non-running cars could be warehoused out of the prying eyes of municipal officials, neighbors, HOAs or other critics.  Now living in an apartment, with only curbside parking on the street, the capacity to enjoy a hobby-car is much diminished.  It's an unheralded rule of the car hobby... we first have to solve our real-estate problem, meaning typically buying a suitable single-family house in the suburbs, before delving deeply into the car-side.  In my new locale, such a house is $1M and up.  So it would be literally cheaper to buy an AMG Mercedes or Audi RS7 or something like that, than to attempt to build a V8 Datsun.  Ironic, no?

 

Prices for Datsuns are indeed rising rapidly, but we should also consider, that even for a $20K car, the real cost will be the engineering and the modifications and the testing, to get it right.  Experimenting with welding this-and-that, and buying the equipment, and throwing-out badly done parts, and so on... that is going to be many tens of thousands of dollars, whether we start with a $2000 beater or a $20K garage-find.

 

Good luck with the next chapter in your venture!