I owned a couple of 260Zs and numerous 280ZXs, including this wacky wide-bodied SWB 2-seater with a Janspeed turbo conversion. It was a labour of love/hate because as you’ll know they’re real rot boxes and the chassis wasn’t up to the task of dealing with all the extra power and grip, so it literally started falling apart. I had a front wheel fall off, thankfully only at walking pace but 5 mins earlier I’d been blatting along the North Circ at speeds well in excess of that, and then the final straw was when a tie rod mounting sheared off and I realised the car needed a whole new chassis and floor plan. As I didn’t have the funds on hand to do that and didn’t have anywhere to store the car while I raised the cash, in 2005 I sold it to a guy in Ireland who planned to do a full ground up job on it. We stayed in touch for a while but the last time I heard from him in 2012 it was still under a tarp in his barn. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions and all that. I often wonder where the Supersonic Canary is now…..
It’s the age of the square oversized arches and wheels that actually don’t anywhere near fit the profile. End 80’s/early 90’s? I remember looking lustfully at similar for my 2.0s Capri
Well, it wasn’t built to appeal to people with basic and normcore sense of aesthetics, so it’s absolutely fine and probably to be expected that it’s not to everyone’s taste The kit is a replica of the IMSA car raced, IIRC, by Paul Newman.
Ah, you mean like an E-type Jag, which again, bucking the mainstream mentality, I think isn’t a particularly nice looking car. The Stratos has the same issue out of the box too. The wheels used to be fitted with spacers so they filled the arches a bit more, but one of them cracked and disintegrated (which is what caused the front wheel to come off), and I never got round to having some billet replacements made, which was my intention. The car used be lower too, but I had to raise the ride height back to stock after the council put speed humps in all the local roads, meaning that I had to drive at walking pace or else risk losing the front spoiler. I also had a track prepped Mini with bucket seats, harnesses and roll cage that had its centre exit exhaust knocked off by speed humps so times that I ended up selling it. But everyone’s a critic, lol
Something like this (not for living on permanently), just throw the dogs and a bag of beer on there on a friday evening and meander off aimlessly for the weekend.
Ahhh…nostalgia,…it’s all flooding back to me now Have to say I wasn’t a fan of the later Z cars, they just got bigger,heavier and uglier, ..the most desirable Z’s were the early 240’s and the 260Z Super Samurai ( not the 2+2 ) with the triple Webber carbs on, drank juice like it was going out of fashion ! Bloody loved the straight six engines in these Also had an early 2.8 V6 injection Capri, or “ the Sledge” as my mate nicknamed it after I managed to powerslide it opposite lock in the rain all the way up Bede college bank in Durham,..went just as fast sideways as it did straight on !..notoriously tail happy they were. Mine was a four speeder and one night coming out of Gateshead, I was legging it up the A1 after a 911 Targa, couldn’t close the gap and then I just felt the car “ stutter” …..hit the Rev limiter in top gear showing about 148 on the clock , game over
The girlf and I are in the process of trying to take up that lifestyle in the very near future. I’m kind of bohemian and non-conformist like many of the river folk and since my workplace has gone 100% remote I feel kind of isolated and claustrophobic WFH all the time, so I think it will suit me.
I can see the appeal of this,..it seems that the older I get the happier I am being off grid, or flying under the radar as they say, I think the last two years of Covid isolations and lockdowns have highlighted to me how some people are just…utter dicks and best avoided
I couldnt live on one permanently. I walk past all kinds of similar boats every morning with the dogs , through all seasons and ive decided that a loooong time ago. I would simply be a weekend warrior Good luck with it though, where are you going to keep the boys toys?
I’d sell most of them but keep Carla, the customised S4, at a friend’s place or in a lock up and then have something like this fabricated to take my DT175. However, I’d probably also have something like a Machine Mart engine derrick rigged up to hoist it onto the platform because pushing it on via a gangplank is likely to lead to me, the bike and the plank ending up in the drink (which coincidently is where my first ever DT met its doom). The DT only weighs 98kg, it’s a real laugh both in the countryside and on urban streets, and despite being a mobile smokescreen generator it’s a historic vehicle and therefore exempt from that absurd London ULEZ tax, so it’s doable. Tbh, so many men of a certain age point and smile at the DT or buttonhole me at shops and petrol stations with their own tales of misspent youth on one of them that Sadiq Fucking Khan should be paying me to ride it around London bringing nostalgic joy to the people therein.
