wow there are some great story tellers amongst you guys. mine can't even compare, though to be fair some of you are twice my age so you've got a few years worth of good stories on me. i'm 19 btw


for as long as i can remember i have always been into cars. i blame my grandfather, who was the only member of my family to own a car back when we lived in russia. i remember being 5 or 6 years old, having my grandfather sit me in his lap and steer, while he worked the pedals in his 1959 Volga (i bet none of you have ever seen one of these cars). well fast forward to my senior year in high school, i was taking an auto shop class, and of course there was a Z amongst the fleet of broken down cars parked behind the shop. it belonged to some teacher at school who had donated it to the shop. the body was in perfect condition, and the engine looked very clean, however it would not start up due to a 'mistery' electrical problem. i wanted to get that car so bad, but the shop teacher only worked on jobs that he got paid for on the side, and didn't teach us much of anything. mostly that class was a big waste of time, exept for the fact that i did a lot of 'research' about the car outside of class in my blind attempts to diagnose the problem, and in the process i learned to love the Z cars. Into the second semester of my senior year i was given my dad's 95 nissan maxima, which i began to mod with any money that i had. after about a year and a half of owning it, i managed to wrap the car around a telephone pole. i was devestated, the car had meant the world to me, and i had spent virtually all the money that i made on the car. i had drained my bank account the previous week on a set of headers for the maxima (can't believe i paid $700 for headers, dang i wish i had a Z at the time, i would have been able to complete a turbo swap for that ammout of money ). well anyways, my parents kicked me out of their house for wrecking the car, and i went to live with one of my friends. since he kinda wanted me to pay part of the rent he bought me a beat to hell '88 maxima, that was parked down the block from out apartment, for $450. i immediately got a job delivering pizza and paid him back for the car, and two months rent, in less than two weeks. well i spent about 7 months delivering pizza in this beater car before it started to break down, and during that time i had accumulated quite a bit of money in my bank account because i didn't have a car to blow it all on. i wasn't looking too hard for a new car because the maxima still ran, it was just little things breaking down (like the car randomly shutting off while driving) that were getting to me. well one day i took some side roads on my way to a friend's house to avoid traffic when i saw a silver (read gray) ZX with $500 written on the windshield parked in someone's front yard, so i pulled a quick u-turn to check out the car. it looked perfect, aside from the detriorating interior, though i had strong doubts about whether it ran, because it looked like it had been sitting there for quite a while. there was no-one home so i called the number posted on the car. it turned out to be the cell phone number of the guy's GF, so i wasn't looking to get much information out of her. in responce to my question of "so.. whats wrong with the car?" she said she though that the power steering leaked a little. if i was talking to her face to face, she would have seen my jaw drop. the next day, after taking the car for a test drive, i bought it for $500 cash, without even attempting to negotiate on the price. after a new radiator from AZ z-car the car ran perfectly, enough so that i drove it from AZ all the way to NY in august, without any problems what-so-ever. and thats pretty much it, i've only had the car since last April, and i have some huge plans for it, including a vh45 swap later on when i have the resourses and the know how. at the moment i'm driving that very same maxima that i had back in high school while trying to revive that very first Z in auto shop. i've spent much more money than it's worth fixing all the accident dammage on the maxima, but i was too deep into it to just let the car go. at the moment the ZX sits in a make-shift garage waiting for parts as i'm slowly restoring the interior to its original 'splendor'. i won't drive it during the winter as i don't want to ruin the pristine AZ rust free body driving on the heavily salted roads in NY. and thats pretty much it for now...



dang i didn't expect to write so much, but there it is. here is a link to my picture gallery if anyone is interested in taking a look at any of my cars and whatever else i have posted on there

http://gallery.azmaximas.org/igor

 

when i inherited my 86 300zx from my step dad and vowed that i would make this thing a head turner and restore it and make it faster and better looking than before

 

Man 007Max's story, or at least the beginning. It's so close to my story. Except the engine and body sucked on the Autoshop class Z. I agree with what everyone's saying. This really is a good thread.

 

my aunt and uncle had a blue 280zx (cant remember year), and then an '85 300zx after the 280 got totaled. i was just a little kid, so i really didnt know cars that much, but i remember loving those cars. and what kid could resist a talking car? when i was getting my license, i didnt care what i had, as long as it was a car, so my stepdad gave me his '85 s10 blazer. i liked it ok, and it did what i wanted. then, at school, one of the guys in my class had a grey z32 that i absolutely fell in love with. so i started looking into z cars and realised that the cars my aunt and uncle had were also z's. from then on i was hooked. i never thought that i would ever be able to get a z back then, they seemed way out of reach. when i joined the navy, my folks sold my blazer, and for the first two years or so i was moving around the country so much that i really couldnt have a car. when i finally got settled in san diego, i found out that they had been underpaying me for like a year and a half, so i got a big fat backpay check, and decided that it was going to be spent on a z. i had been looking at a lot of sorry looking 280's and horribly beat z31s, and then, when i was getting ready to settle on a gold 81 280zx that ran great but needed some serious interior work, and had some rust, i came across a z31 in the autotrader that i had missed. i called the people and they said that i could come over and take a look right then. as i drove into the parking lot and saw that z, i got a feeling that this was my car. the paint wasnt in the best shape, but it was by far the best i had seen so far, and the interior was in amazing shape for a 16 year old SoCal car. i took it for a quick test drive, offered them what i had in cash, and drove off happier than i can ever remember being. that is my current car, and although i am looking for a turbo, i think it will be hard to part with this car. and hey, i need a daily driver while i'm working on the turbo anways! i still catch myself about once a day just staring at my car from different angles, loving the feeling the car gives me.

and i agree, this should be moved somewhere that the entire forum can see, and maybe stickied too.

 

Yeah it was rushing out of my head, faster than I could type it. And I like sharing my experiences with other people. I have told a lot of true stories about my past life experiences.

 

My Z is a mid-life crisis. DH was looking for a house for me to renovate. Told him to rethink that idea. Two days later, we adopted Z.

 

Ever since I was a kid I've always liked datsun Z cars. Never to the point to where I try to find out everything though. About 4 months before I turned 15 I did work on a building for some dude (my dad's girlfriends grandfather) gave me a 280zx in return for the work. Since then I've been a major Z car freak. I try to learn all that I can about every generation of Z possible, except for the 350Z (damn wannabe, I don't like them) We tried to transfer the title over but we found out that the guy we got it from never got the title transferred to his name (He got it at an auction). We gave the title back to him to get it transferred over. He still hasn't got it transferred over yet . The 280zx has been sitting in the same spot since but I start it every 3 weeks still. While waiting for the title I eventually got a 1979 Cadillac, which I loved to death but it wasn't fast at all and I had the need for speed. Pretty much all of my money went to gas . One day on the way to work I saw this bad#ss car for sale and I pulled over to see what it was. It was a 1985 300zx 2+2 nonturbo. I instantly fell in love with this car and had to have it. I kept showing my dad this car and tried to get him to let me get it. One day he takes me with him to test drive it with him. I was going frickin nuts and wanted this car more each minute . He bought it for 1500 bucks...for himself . I kept telling him I'm going to buy the car from him but he was persistant in not selling me the car. When I was complaining about gas prices and mileage he asked if I wanted the car. I said HELL YEAH! He liked the way it drove but he was too big (round ) for the car. I traded my Caddy and 300 bucks for it. I couldn't of been happier. After about a year of owning the 300zx I was paying more to keep the car running right and gas than I was the Caddy. This car is really problematic. Right now I'm replacing the main drive bearing and putting in a new clutch, then getting rid of the car. I've finally decided what I really wanted and tracked down the previous legally documented owner of the 280zx and he has agreed to get a title duplicate and sign it over to me. By about the end of next week I might have the title for it and will have some fresh questions for you guys.
LONG LIVE Z's!!!

 

^Awesome.

My older brother has been into Zs since he was in high school. He drove a red 260Z to school, actually. His list of Zed sleds included a mint 240Z, several 260s and 280Zs, a mint 280ZXT auto, and a beat 2+2 GL, which is now mine.

I guess what really got me into it was first and foremost getting my Z as a gift from him. Originally, my other brother was going to get it, but he wound up back in jail, so it became mine. Another reason for loving Zs so much, was riding shotgun in my bro's Turbo. From the first pull on-boost, I was hooked. The sound of a pissed-off L6, the beautiful handling, and the looks connected with me.

After owning my Zed for a week, she broke [parking brake cable snapped, struts blew, clutch died] after some "spirited" driving. Then she sat, for over a year and a half. I've done some work here and there to her, including stripping the interior and miscellaneous garbage in the engine bay. My older sister got into an accident with my Zed back when it was hers for a month, and she never bothered to fix it, so there's still some minor structural damage on the front-right, with major rust and corrosion in that area as well.

I'm on my second Rx7 [first was a '79 GT, now an '86 SE], passed through two Pontiacs and a Buick [Sunbird GT Turbo, GrandAm, and Regal, respectively], and was $5 away from a 300ZXT, but my 2+2 has stuck through them all. Right now she's a track car project on hold due to lack of funds.

Gotta say, the Zedophiles on this site have kept me working on my Z, hell, even saved her from certain doom once [almost sold her!]. Because of this, I'll always be a Nissan/Z-car guy, even if I do own a Mazda.

-Dave-O

 

Is that what we call it now?

 

I can remember the first time I fell in love with the Z. It was 1983 and I was about 11 or 12b years old and I was walking home from school and this clean yellow 280ZX with a big fat whale tail loud exhaust, and a full body kit, drove by. I remember just staring at it drive by and thinking that’s the most beautiful car ive ever seen in my life.. from that day on I had to have a 280ZX. At the time this car was brand new and not too many people fixed up their Zs like this one was.. it was yellow lowered and had a full body kit. The car belonged to my friends older brother. Their family owns like 4 or 5 Zs.. they own matching Red and silver 280ZX.. well anyways.. by the time I was old enough to drive. I wanted a 280ZX so bad that I cut my hair and got a job and Mc Donalds and worked for like 9 months straight and saved every pay check to pay for my Z. it was a beat up 1979 280ZX.. I wasn’t going to have any other car but a Z.. and that’s how it all began with me. Ive had other cars in my life but none have ever given me the same feeling that my Z has given me…