Me: Ryan, 28, Z32 enthusiast for the last 10+ years Model: 10/95 Aus spec manual series IV #1463/1463 Build: Clean, stock, as Nissan intended Mileage: 105,000km Colour: TK3 Sapphire Blue (blue velvet) Bodykit: Stock! Engine Type: VG30DE Arrival modifications: Simmons wheels, aftermarket gearknob Bad parts on arrival: For a 25 year old car, honestly not much at all. Date of purchase: October 2020 stuff to come: General maintenence Budget: For this Z, whatever it requires (scary thought I know). Well, I honestly never thought I'd be making this post but here we are. After seeing this post: https://aus300zx.com/index.php?threads/95-96-aus-delivered-s3-manual-2-2.337381/ I've had my eye on the Z ever since. To most people this is "too slow, not a turbo", "hard to work on" or a "boat" but to me it's truly something special. VIN #10122, the final Australian delivered 300zx made for the Australian market. Sold new in Southeast Queensland October 1996 and appears to have been a Qld car all its life. The information I have indicates that it changed hands to the 2nd owner in 2001 who didn't drive it very much. In 2017 he prepared the car for sale however passed away some time in 2018-2019 before was able to do so and the car was left with his family. I originally was in negotiations to buy the car off the family (going back and forth for months) however we weren't able to come to an agreement and the Z had sold to an unknown buyer. At this point assumed I likely wouldn't see it come up for sale again and accepted this as a sign I wasn't meant to have the car. Fast forward 12 months and one night scrolling through facebook I saw an EOI post for a blue 300zx on 17" Simmons that looked familiar. By this point the photo links on Aus300zx were broken so all I had was a hunch, however a quick check of the vin confirmed it was indeed the car I thought it was, #10122. Within 24 hours I'd placed a deposit and arranged to go view it at the end of the week (aka. 1300km round trip with a car trailer on the back of the ute). The 3rd owner was a nice young guy who reminded me a lot of myself when I was his age, didn't know a great deal about cars but admired the Z32. This meant that most of what he'd done was maintenence rather than tacky mods (the worst being an aftermarket gearknob fortunately). For the most part, it was in similar condition to when he purchased it which was a huge sigh of relief. I promptly loaded it onto my trailer and became the proud 4th owner of this car. My plans now are to do a major service on it, change fluids etc. and restore it back to as close to original as possible and keep it clean and tidy. The aus-spec lights will go back in the front but am undecided on whether the wheels will stay as while they're not original, they have been on it for 20 years now. Unfortunately, I don't have everything to go with the car as the original framed poster (Evolution of the Z car) didn't go with the car when it was inherited by the family, same goes for the stock wheels and personalised number plate "300 OZX". If anyone has any information or further details about these I'd love to hear from you. I don't have too many photos at the moment, so have included two from the trip plus a few from past owners. (Huge thanks to sketchy for still having the email with photos in it from 2018!) Older photos:
Fantastic find & love the tk3 blue. I think with this one you've got to go all stock, ditch the simmons, restore any niggly bits & just enjoy it. Have you still got the stock radio?
Thanks all, yes still has the original tape deck & CD player in it (though I'm struggling to find a casette to test it with)! I'm not 100% on the wide rear wheels, while they were cool it also wasn't original to this car (plus I heard they were hard to find decent size tires for these days)? Actually toying around with the idea of putting on a set of AVS VS5's as fitted to the 25th anniversary cars if I can find a set as I have quite a soft spot for them..
Looks like a nice car, very well kept. There's an ad on car sales, a 2000 z32 jdm 2+2 n/a the only one in Australia.. Be nice to own both, although quite pricey. 31k Not sure what you paid, but it's a nice one to hold on to. Unique colour, cool.
Small update, put a post up on Facebook and within the hour had managed to track down the previous owners grandson. He still has the plates and framed photo but unfortunately doesn't want to let them go. Also, new plates arrived.
Another update, I was able to have a decent chat with the previous owners son (turns out I was wrong and that it was actually the son not grandson) who has the plates & framed photo. I was able to get a picture of the framed photo from the previous owner and have confirmed that it has the correct VIN on it. I'm glad that it hasn't disappeared and that he has a strong appreciation for it. As much as I'd love to hang this on my wall I can understand why he wouldn't want to let it go, especially when letting go of the car was so hard on its own. Bernie Walsh was the artist comissioned by Nissan Australia back in the 90's to do these images. I've found a phone number, some email addresses & his Instagram account online now but so far he hasn't replied to me. It's a long shot but If anyone in the Melbourne art scene has any contacts that may be able to help me get in touch with him I'd love to hear from you. I'm not expecting him to recreate the poster for me but would love to talk to him about his time doing the posters for Nissan and possibly comissioning him to do a 1/1 piece... https://www.instagram.com/berniewalsh101/ A couple weeks ago my old friend Harry came over as he wanted to take a look at the car, and after finishing off an engine swap on his car a few months ago I wanted to run my eye over everything to make sure no little issues had popped up for him. He's trusted me to work on his car for close to the last 10 years now so I figured it was only fair to let him take LST300 for a drive. I finally got around to taking some half-decent photos of the car this afternoon too (also reverted back to the aus-spec front lights too a little while ago).
Bernie Walsh was actually one of my lecturers at Monash Uni probably 15 years back or so when I was studying Industrial Design, he actually worked for Nissan in the design department, he was pretty high up I'm pretty sure. Had a few chats to him about zeds as I was daily driving my aus-spec to uni at that point. Sorry no current connections other than following him on instagram but he posts pretty regularly, I'd just keep trying him on there. Zeds looking fantastic, well done.
Oh wow that's awesome, did he ever mention doing the artwork for the last run of cars? I'd dare say my messages are probably getting filtered out into some unknown/spam section of his Instagram account unfortunately (or he just doesn't want to talk to me) but will keep trying.
Can't recall sorry but he was certainly happy to chat about his time there. Maybe comment on one of his posts so it's a bit more visual & less likely to be filtered?
It's been a while since I've updated this post so here's a few photos I took a little while ago after a quick last-minute mountain run. Hopefully will be able to post more of an update in the next few weeks.
Pretty good, though a few small niggles that I would like to fix up to get it back to a standard that I can truly be proud of. I currently have a number of other projects on the go though, so won't be able to address them straight away unfortunately. Truthfully though, I just enjoy looking at this car. And have found myself walking to the garage just to look at it on more than one occasion...
So, I've been wanting to make this update for a while now... Late last year I managed to finally get in touch with Bernie Walsh. I had the pleasure of talking to him on the phone (literally for hours) sharing my story about this Z32 and my history with 300's. I have to say, he is a really nice guy and very humble too. He shared some great stories about his time at Holden and Nissan back when he was chief designer there (like being one of the few who got to take home an R32 GT-R for the night when they first arrived in Australia) and he definitely has a soft spot for the Z32. Bernie agreed to do a one-off piece for me that wouldn't be an exact replica of his original design, but instead would draw on it with a number of other attributes from his history and other work. He explained to me about lighting and perspective at different times of the day and how when he was sketching vehicle designs they would do it in a way that almost made it look like the image was coming out of the page from concept to design, and you can see a number of these different components in his work. I decided to have it printed on perspex for a more modern look and well, this is the result. (Also got a keytag made up while I was at it) Honestly, Bernie was such a great guy to deal with and It was truly a privilege to not only have him do a piece for me, but also to be able to get to talk with and learn from him. He regularly posts on Instagram and I'd recommend giving him a follow if you're interested in seeing more of his work. https://www.instagram.com/berniewalsh101/