My inspiration... (long)

[280zwitha383]

Here's a neat story I thought I would share with you.

When I got my first Z, an '82 280zx, it didn't have a hood, passenger front fender, bumper, back glass, and the passenger door was bashed up pretty bad. I bought it for $300 because I liked the dash layout, the talking lady, and it ran. I thought I was buying a go cart and had plans of taking the doors off and pretty much stripping it down to nothing and tearing it up. I had no idea what the car was really supposed to look like as far as the front of it.

So one day I'm out tinkering with the engine and one of my neighbors that I've never seen before or since stops and shoots the bull with me a little telling me about his 70 something Z he was building for his daughter. Then he tells me that there's a guy about 15 minutes away from me that has all the Z parts I could probably ever want! So I get excited and call the guy just to see what he had and maybe get some body parts off of him which I did for basically $100. He tells me about some of his cars (I think he called one of his cars a Corzette actually because he said it had basically a Corvette looking front end and looked like one from a distance) and we go over to his buddies who has two beautiful 240z's in his garage which really got me excited about the car.

Anyway towards the end of our initial conversation he tells me that he's planning on putting a 327 in a 240z that he has and tells me about Jags That Run! Like I said, I had no idea about anything about the car and I especially never thought about an engine swap.

About a year and half passes and something in my 5 spd gave out so I pulled the engine and tranny and went full ahead with my engine swap. It took me about 3 months to get it on the road after having the engine in the machine shop for about 3 months also... So, in all, probably a little over two years passes and I call the guy (John) because a friend of mine wanted to buy a Z. I told him that I swapped a 383 into my Z and he got excited and told me he wanted a ride. I told him sure and said that I wanted to go for a ride in his 327 Z. To which he replied that he never did the engine swap! I was shocked; after all, he was my inspiration. He told me that he sold almost all of his cars to someone in Dallas (I think) and pretty much got out of Z's. He still has a few but I haven't been able to get ahold of him in a long time. I wish I could but I think I've lost his # and I know he doesn't have mine.

Anyway, that's my story

[Guest ON3GO]

how i got into Z's is pretty plan and simple.... was 14 and riding in the back of my parents suv when a white TT Z32 goes FLYING by..... nails 3rd and goes 100% sideways. it was beautiful!

my mom says "thats just stupid, why would you want to do that"....

i had such a grin on my face and till that day i was a Z guy!

1st car was a Z32 and ive owned a Z of some type ever since i could drive.

ive owned other cars (many lol) at the same time but always had a Z.

 

how i got into older Z's was pretty simple... i was talking about another project car and my dad said "why not a old datsun Z, they are super cool".

i remember saying "there girl cars, old junk boxes" i then proceeded to look into buying a 2nd gen awd eclipse (haha now thats a girl car!).

3 days later i go out driving and saw a white 240Z that had forsale on it.

talked to the owner and bought it right there for 500 bucks.....

i didnt know ANYTHING about these cars or older cars at all.

said it was "rust free"..

got it towed home and put it right in the garage, i never ever even looked under it or anything!

tired sitting in it and fell right threw the floor!

my dad yelled at me like nuts for buying such a POS.

next day i woke up and the car was GONE!

i really didnt care at the time because i thought it was a crap box but man do i hate myself now for not saying something as that car had a PERFECT dash, seats, bre spoiler, some type of rare jdm wheels, and euro perfect bumpers!!!!!

so ya that car got sent SOMEWHERE!!! im guessing to the crusher, i never thought to even ask.

so the search was on for a nice old Z when i found my green Z on ebay.

had a hybridz guy go look at it (it was in cali) and bought it and shipped it after he told me it was a good buy.

7 days later i get a call from the shipping company that there outside the local food store and to come pick up my car.

drove there with my dad and saw my green money pit that is now my HULK Z.

1st time i ever sat in my own green Z was the 1st time i really ever sat in a Z (i dont count the 240Z as i feel threw the damn floor!), 1st time i drove a old Z was in my own green Z.

I for one thought and still think that was the biggest risk/jump i ever did, as i didnt even know if i would like owning/driving these cars but i went ahead and bought one without even knowing.

 

hehe on the way home in my green Z i tried to shift to 5th and couldnt find it, i started to FREAK OUT but then figured out it was only a 4 speed... haahha

 

now im stuck on S30 Z's for the rest of my life!

 

mike

[Guest BiltWel]

My first Z experiance was owning an 83 with the talking lady. I bought it for $4000 off of a car lot it hade the silver and black paint scheme. Well I sent it to get painted solid black it spent 6 mths in paint jail and I swore I would never have somone else paint a car for me so that was the birth of my paint and body carreer. Well long story short about 1 mnth after getting it back from the painter I placed that Z about 3 feet under a full size chevy truck with a drop bumper it took out everthing from the bumper up and back to the engine. So I bought a non running 83 t-top model and swapped the moter into it. The car I have now was a lucky find where I am for $300 if I only knew what was lurking below the tall grass I probabley would not have bought her. Kind of like ON3GO's experience with the floor boards. But I have always thought of cars as having souls and just could not junk her. So 2 yrs later we are where we are, and that is the rest of my story. What's yours?

[zdmz]

I bought my first z, a 71, in the early 80's. I had been looking for a 60's camaro but could not find one so I started expanding my options. I found a z car with some psyco paint job that I thought was neat but it got sold out from under me. The one I did buy belonged to a guy that had lost his job and was selling his toys off. Paid about $800 for it. It ran well but was crappy in every other way. Took it on several road trips and had a lot of good times in it.

 

Didn't do much maintenance on it because I was always poor. Eventually I ended up parking it thinking that I would rebuild it someday. Never happened, ended up giving it away after trying to sell it with no success.

 

They guy I gave it to gave it back to me a while ago and it is a worse piece of junk than ever.

One of these days I will rebuild it........

[ULISES]

Memories!

 

Here is my storie:

I got my dl when I was 17 years old. My dad and I were looking around to buy my first car,I had a honda cvcc when I was 16 but did not drive it much so I won't count it as my first car.Anyways we saw a 7? Buick Apollo the one that looks like the Nova.the guy wanted like $1200 it had a blown engine,We were going to put a rebuilt or new engine in it but the deal did no go through.

We kept searching We saw a couple of 65 to 66 mustangs but they were to expensive.Soon we came across an 82 280ZX 5spd. 2+2 it had 90k and was a one owner car.It was dark grey with light grey and black interior.It was close to perfect.I payed $1400 for it, I did not know how to drive stickshift back then so my dad drove it home,When we got home he told me to switch seats and explained what to do and got out of the car.I was like what the hell!

After like 4 days of parctice he told me to drive him to the autoparts and corrected my mistakes and that was it for my driving lessons.I burned a clutch trying to do burnouts in like 6 months....LOL My younger brother showed me how to do a real burnout later on.

 

One time I was driving on the freeway and there is this japanese guy trying to race me on a early Z,My mom and my friend were with me in the car(excuse) I punched and he even blew a kiss and left fast!

So I said I have to get one of those sometime,I went on a good year vacation,My dad sold my 280zx and when I came back there was a 78 280Z waiting for me on his driveway.It was running in 4 cylinders, I told my brother jump in lets go drive it like that.I got on it and it still had balls.So out the old and in a used low miles.It ran great after.

 

My brother and I always talked about him getting one and we were going to fix them up and paint them Mine was going to be bleu and his red.So we were looking for his car,One time we had a cousin come to visit and we had to walk to the store since I had two seats only.Well that was the best walk we ver had,We went trhough some small streets and came across the 77 Z,I catched the nose with my left eye and was trying to catch my bro and cousin.I told my brother wait I think I saw a 280Z lets go back and look at it.We went back and it was for sale, That car was petty.We knock on the guys door and told them we were interested.We rushed home and told my dad we went back and made a deal with the guy.He was the second owner and the car had been garaged by him for 7 years.The tags were that old too.

Drove it home and had to clean the fuel tank.

I go on vacation again and my 78 gets sold.

My brother drove the car for 3 years and had the car sitting most of the time.I always bothered him to sell it to me.Once he did sell to me but the deal did not go through for some reason.then he goes on vacation and came across a 98 pace corvette,He was trying to buy it and called me and told me I can have the Z for free (best give I have ever got).

 

Now I am building my Dream car and he just bought a 240Z with the intention of building his,But he wants a 280Z not a 240Z.So its going up for sale soon.

[savageskaterkid]

When I was 15 I saw a car that I didn't really know what it was. Went and looked at it, it was a 81' 280zx. They wanted 200 for it, at the time the body looked excellent-so I spent all 200 that I had and bought it. Played with it for a bit and couldn't get the thing started. Spent about 1500 just to get it running, got it running. Drove it every day, had a bunch of electrical gremlins though. Ended up putting it into a curb just right at about 70 and destroyed the front right suspension. Spent about another 700 to fix that. Decided to sell it, but nobody wanted an old datsun. My suspension was too far gone and so was the frame and floor. Ended up junking it. Looked for another Z. Found one on ebay for just the right price-atleast I thought it was. Bought it without even thinkin about getting it shipped. Matt (Sparks280zt) helped out with the shipping, and at my house it sits. I did manage to get it started without having to buy more then a battery, but I broke the fuel pump when I bottomed it out. But that was my stupidity. Within a week it will be boosted, and I'll keep this one for a LONG time. Not gonna do dumb stuff with this one.