When did you fall in love with the Nissan 300zx and why??

would of been about 8 years ago.
Saw a yellow z32 in gracemere, I found where it was parked and oogled at it whenever we drove past.

And when I turned 18 and was looking for my first car on carsales, out of curiousity I decided to search for a 300, just to see how much they went for.

I was jawdropped by their price and spent 4 months looking for the right one. And here we are.

I do regret not waiting and paying an extra 3-5k for one in smic condition. But eh, I still love my Z.

:zlove:

 

I fell in love with the zeds back in '70, or was it '71?
I was living in Narrogin and a well known rally driver, Ross dunkerton had the Datsun dealership and he got his hands on the 1st 240z in oz, so he told everyone.
Now back then this car was a real head turner, still is but you get the drift. Threw out my porn collection and replaced it with zed pics.
So after getting married and bringing up kids it was time to spoil myself. Over the years I saw them get better and better and had to get one.
It's sitting outside broken down, again, but who care, I still love her and she'll get fixed today and all's forgiven.

 

For me it was last year, looking for my first car. initially i wanted a s13 silvia, after months of hunting down numerous silvias and getting shafted right at the last minute, i seen a black 2+0 on the way to my girlfriends house. i couldn't stop staring at it so i turned around and had a look, the owner came out, we talked and took it for a test drive. i fell in love!! talked to the parents about it, and took it home with me 3 days later

4 weeks later my zed ownership was cut short, crashed her first time driving in the wet :'(

after going through all the insurance bullshit, i got my money back. needing a new car as i just started a new job i brought a cheap reliable vt :mad2: couldn't stand driving it, only good point about a large car is the comfy long road trips.

after 10 months of work and saving enough cash i brought another 2+0 n/a, sold my vt and now here i am

my new zed requires a lot of love as she has been neglected

so its just by fate you could say, that i have a true love for zeds :zlove:

 

Back in 1990...

...there was a Nissan Dealer over the road from my Wifes work on Nepean Hwy Moorabin and there was a charcoal grey colored one in the showroom so i wondered over there to take a look and it was ammaaaaazing...!
Love at 1st site (and $68k lol) I sat in it and checked out the contoured dash and everything about the whole car was like an exotic sculpture. (only other car that has had that effect on me is the 1999 Lamborghini Diablo VT Roadster)
Was a fan ever since and always went gaga when one went past...
I remember a while ago we were living in Safety Beach and there was a carpark at the boat ramp across the road from our house and my Wife called me and said "Hey Shaun a Zed just pulled into the car park... oh look there's another one!"
By the time I walked into the Sun Room there were 18 of them lined up and some still parking... I went across the road and took photo's and said "Gidday" and remember checking out a Red NA with a painted console and white Gauge cluster... and funnily enough about 4 yrs later it was in a car yard in Dandenong and now it's been mine for the past 3 1/2 yrs...
Will probably be buried in it if the Crematorium agrees lol (JK I'm not going anywhere yet)

:zlove: :zlove: :zlove:

 

always wanted a GTR from age 14, remember being in my friends commodore at at 16 or so and a black TT wheel spinning past us at 80 kays. upon hitting 18 didn't have the budget for a GTR so i looked up the 300zx, first one i saw i didn't fall in love with, was ok. Second one blew my mind and i had her for 4 yrs.

 

Then you changed the front bumper and made it look like a bottom feeder

 

Yeap, that'd do it!

It's quite funny the look on a kids face when they see a zed, thier eyes light up like a christmas tree....

always found it funny when all i have was a motorbike for transport back then zxr250's

and i'd park it some be walking away and some kid would go mummy mummy look at the motorbike!!!

and you'd see the mother go, NO! THEY ARE DANGEROUS! give me a glare and walk away....

3 guesses what those kids will own later in life lol...

 

Crashed my previous ride, and desperately needed to buy a cheap affordable laser to get buy, on the web i somehow stumbled across a 300zx on carsales.
all thoughs of cheap and reliable left my mind.
thousands of dollars and uncountable heartbreaking "problems" later

its still the best money and time i have spent.

 

Its a damn shame when z's are neglected, but i'm glad theres people like you and me bringing them back to life instead of letting them die...

I salute you

 

I think I was 12. Walking towards the beach with my parents and spotted a 300ZX parked on the side. Thought it was the best looking car on the planet. Dad mumbled something about impractical which pretty well sums me up when it comes to cars.
18 years later I finally bought one Was going to be a shed ornament that I slowly rebuild over a few years, but an unexpected car failure sped things up.

 

when i saw this picture - http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e372/Weber3211/babe2.jpg


figured car = girl










Nah it was more the eariler models with the long bonnets which got me. same with the early rx7s


but i got the later version of all of the (FC, Z32)


would still own a 240, 260, or a 2 seater 280.

 

A couple of months ago after suffering from a bad break up with my Aristo, I took a black zed for a test drive, she was cheap, well maintained and stock standard with not bolts ons; just the way I like it. I picked her up the next day and we've never looked back.

Now I spend all my money on buying her presents like a new clutch, air filter, smics, a boost controller, and S2PTU to name a few... I'm saving up to get her plenum pulled, some new shoes and a 99spec face lift, she will look hot!

Now these days I find myself taking the long way home. Making excuses to go for drives and when there's nothing else to do we just go for a cruise together, play our favourite tunes and let the good times role. It's true love :zlove::zlove::zlove::zlove:

 

1992 Melbourne Motor show...

They had a black and silver NA on display.... even as a 15 year old kid, I thought they were the most awesome cars there

 

There are some pretty awesome stories on here. It's interesting that most fell for the looks instead of the personality.

 

This is a long one

First time i saw a Z car was in 1986 when the whole family came back to Oz for holiday.

Our Real estate agent had a brand spanking new z31 300zx turbo in red with targa roof. i loved it. i was about 9. When we got back to Europe I was begging my old man to buy it instead of the 84 200D Merc we had at the time.

no luck

Than in 1990 my old man took me to this massive Agricultural Show (motorshow for tractors and farming equipment) in Novi Sad (in ex Yugoslavia)

At the gates there was this absolutely low shiny black car... it looked like a Ferrari or something.

I just ran to check it out. when i got there the familiar 300zx at the rear lights gave it away as a Nissan. I still remember screaming at my old man saying : " Dad this is the new 300zx. the next model after Angelo's red 300zx in Australia"

My old man caught up with me and I'm pretty sure we were looking at it for at least an hour. We both forgot about the tractor and wanted to get the Z32.. but we didn't....

Closest i got to z32 is when my grandma sending me a matchbox version 1:64 scale yellow with "300zx" on the doors from Oz..

In 1991 we came back to Australia. But still no Z car actually not even a sports car.. Very disappointing, overseas car like that was just wrong for the area we lived in. very dodgey roads snow salt dust etc... but back in OZ why not? But Dad had other ideas 4wds was his new passion.

Few years gone passed and finally got my L licence. Time for a real car yay.

Again I was wrong. I was thinking VL calais, 300zx,200sx, Mr2, Celica gt4 or old ford coupe but my old man was thinking barinas and camiras ........... yep I got a Camira biggest POS.

Z32 was way over our price range... Brand new 300zx was like nudging 80K+ in 1996 so the dream of Z32 was just that a Dream...

I had to come to my senses. Still stuck with Nissan especially the baby nissan sports car the 200sx.

Even i had lot of help from my old man being in the car industry and could have bought me a lightly damaged car and fix it up for really good price.It was still difficult getting hands on anything like it through Adelaide auctions.

than in 1996 while we were visiting family in Melbourne we checked out the Altona damaged car auction possibility for upgrading my 1994 ford telstar V6 anything sporty or 200sx/300zx.

I couldn't believe that there was a pearl white 1994 Z32 300zx lightly rolled done 27k km. Both of our eyes lit up .I smiled at my old man saying to him "this is ours?" all he did is nodded a yes.

We spent at least an hour checking the car out and making the list of needed parts. Straight on the phone with our Nissan spare parts guy to give us the damage cost. It was exy but still, we didn't give up.

the damage cost in parts only was just under 15k. no second hand parts than. finding a zx was hard enough even harder one at Nissan wreckers.

next day at the auction we were ready. i don't think i slept that nite.
the lot arrived and it was so much excitement it was crazy.

dad started a bid at 7k and quickly jumped to 12k where it slowed down my old man holding the highest bid. Im like no way our limit was 15k.
just befroe the 3rd call another bidder starts pushing it up.. 15k passed still other bidder dad pushes further to 16 and 17 with no luck. we both really wanted it even if it was 2k over our budget dad goes for it again.

it stopped at 18.5 on my old man and just before the 3rd call the other bidder offers 18.6 and dad gives up and says: "sorry its not worth it I tried"

Dreams shattered again it was a very long drive back to Adelaide for both of us.

Eventually he managed to get me my second dream car the 200sx just before my 21 birthday. The car was complete the day before my actual party it was one of the best days in my life. not my first dream car but second oh well cant complain.
Love the S14 so much that my car upgrading stopped and 200sx was perfect.

though still loved the Z32 but massive importation kinda made a rare car not so rare. but good thing was we got TT versions..

still kept looking at getting one but the stories of unrealiability and difficult to work on kinda put me off.

few years later after spending bit of money on the s14 i decided to get my self a project car and ended up with a 260z. everyone knows how that ended up but from the all the bad there was also a good.

I finally ended up getting the Z32 twin turbo.

Only thing I'm pissed off about it is I should have got one looooong time ago at least while my old man was still around so he could take it for a enjoyable drive around the hills like he dreamed about back in 1990.

Both my missus and I absolutely love it. Actually everyone that's seen it in family loves it.We love taking the targa down and cruising down the coast and forgetting our day to day issues. its like a micro holiday. :zlove:

We are spending some money on the Z to get it to its former glory. at the moment I think we be holding on to it once everything is done and include it in our collection of Z, SX cars and one Mustang.

also like thebigshow I take longer cuts and cant wait for any excuse to get it and drive it. Also still has the feel of the original Z car.

sorry for long story. I've cut a lot out but still too long.

:zlove::zlove::zlove:

 

If a car / bike doesn't look good, I don't care how well it goes. Looks followed by performance and reliability. Although Reliability wasn't a factor when buying the zed.

 

In 1994 the old man that lived up the road had a shiny red z32 2+2 i was only 10 . so one day he was on the corner of the street getting ready to turn out and this is where my obsession began.
I was there with a mate and yelled " Do a BURNOUT" well he looked at me and my little friend standin on the side of the road and LAUGHS at us and started drive off real slow he crosses to the other side of the road and he stomped it This thing just sat there spinnin for what felt like a lifetime and the sound was just so crazy. after all the excitement i turn to my mate and said I will have a car like that 1 day.
Then in 2006 at willowbank raceway i seen 1 on the track had no front bar and was a bit worse for wear. He was goin hard on it it looked fast on the track and it was for sale the fellow wanted 14k for a N/A 2 seat he had heaps to say but it looked stock so i offered 9 and got it
LOVED IT SINCE

 

For me it was back sometime around 1990/91, when my Mum's business partner at the time spent something like $65+K buying a brand spanking new red Auspec 2+2 NA 5spd manual 300ZX!:zlove::zlove::zlove:

I had never even heard of the 300ZX until then!

Can you imagine the look on my face when one night my Mum brought his car home & after asking her (as really just a joke!) if I could take it for a drive?.......... she threw me the keys!

It was a usual hot summer night in Adelaide so the targas were off!
I've never seem so many heads turn as I drove that car around!..........I was the proudest (& luckiest!) 22 yr old on the road! :zlove::zlove:

After that night I was determined that one day I would be the proud owner of what had instantly become my 'dream car'!

It only took a further 14years for the price to depreciate enough for me to be able to afford my very own Z!.......& no surpises it was a red Auspec 2+2 NA manual 5spd!

I wish I knew the details of that car! - it would be interesting to see if someone here on the forum ended up owning it?? ........it could have even been me for all I know! .......how ironic would that have been!

If anyone out there has the owner history of their Auspec Z? - the first owner name would have been J.Puskas & it was bought in SA - from the NISSAN dealer in Morphet Vale I think?

So to all the young guys & girls out there now buying a Z as your VERY first car!..........you probably don't realise just how lucky you really are!

 

1989 at RAAF Base Wagga. A civillian female staff member had a brand new white one. We all thought it was awesome. Since then a Z32 was my 'dream car', but never thought I'd afford one. Started looking in '99 when imports were trickling in and had done some homework. I wanted a TT 2+2 Manual in good condition, colour wasn't a big factor however I had some pics of Zs in all colours above my desk at work that I'd cut from Unique Cars mag, and over a period of time whittled them down to 3 or 4 colours.
I began looking in import yards in late '99, but what I found made my heart sink; anything decent was on the wrong side of $40k (my budget was around $30k). Was about to give up on a Z and buy an R33 Skyline when I stumbled across a little yard called Millennium Imports at Waterford West. Had a stroll around the yard and saw a nice silver 2+0 with 18s but not much else. The dealer came out and asked what I was looking for and I told him. He replied "like this one?" pointing near the office, and there sat a dirty burgundy Z. On closer inspection it was a 2+2 TT Manual, with 42k on the odo (real or not, it was in very good condition) and $30,000 written on the windscreen. After much haggling over trade-in price for my car, and a Christmas break, I drove away in my dream car on January 7th 2000....I still have it, and it still puts a smile on my dial every time I drive it!

 

I saw Miksta's Zed at a shopping center 3 years ago and fell in love with it, even though i had never expressed any interest in cars AT ALL... 1.5 years later, i got my very own Zed. 1 year later, i had Miksta's exhaust sitting in my garage, and today it's still sittign there. I'll get around to it eventually