So, for the long text - feel free to skip!
The Z has been a dream car of mine for a long time. I didn't grow up around cars, but I knew I wanted something do with Cars in general. Late middle school/early high school I saw a 240sx online that absolutely hit me different, and got me on track. First car was a 93 240sx hatchback. Loved it but had no idea how to maintain or fix, and neither did my parents - so it went before I turned 17. I drove a beater V6 Mustang for a while, until I had saved up enough money to find a true project, that I really would have to buy tools and dig deep to learn how to work on. That ended up being a slicktop 1980 280zx, with a blown headgasket and a chunk of frame rail rotted out. I paid $1000 and wished it could have been a Z-car, not a ZX.
I sold that car when I went to college, and mostly moved on - found a 2nd gen Civic, then the Courier, then any number of projects, but always found myself searching FBMP/CL for cheap Z cars. Doesn't happen often. Datsun310guy's post on here maybe a month ago prompted a fresh search, and on my computer I had the old Zcar Forum bookmarked. When I checked it, the seller of this car had posted this car and his 2+2, for $1800 each, less than a day before with no responses. There were only 3 pictures and very little info, so obviously I reached out every way I could immediately. The forum must not be very busy these days, as nobody else reached out or posted any interest in the Coupe. Only problem: The car is 1000 miles away from me in Michigan. Shipping would have cost $1800, and it's 30 hours of driving to get it.
I spoke with my wife, and decided to go for it. She has been with me for 6 years and has listened to me talk about them over the years. We have a good family balance, and so she usually supports me if it's something she knows I want and would enjoy. I spoke with the seller and planned to go down last week, leaving home Feb 3rd and getting to him the 4th. That, of course, is the weekend that "a foot" of snow was forecasted across the whole midwest, literally Detroit down to Texarkana. So we pushed it a week.
I left Thursday early afternoon, with 214,094 miles on my 2000 Expedition. Trip was pretty uneventful, until I started getting some mis-firing during acceleration/load on the highway - steady state was fine. I have had this happen before, and so brought spare coil packs, and even remembered to plug in my Fixd OBD2 scanner. I pulled into a gas station in Marion, IL and idled until it set a CEL. Of course it was cylinder 4, back passenger side - toughest to get to, but still not terrible. 30 Minute stop and I was on the way. Fortunately that was my only mechanical hiccup, and I made it another several hours to a Rest Stop ~20 miles West of Memphis, where I slept for 4 hours or so.
Got up Friday and made it the last 3.5 hours to Texarkana and the U-Haul pickup, then to the seller. As with most of us car guys, he had a lot of good stories about both Z cars, as well as his pair of trucks - He dailies a pretty cool squarebody, and has a beautiful frame-off 65(?) Chevy truck with a straight 6/3 on the tree he'll be finishing soon.
Got the car loaded up and made it ~9 hours back to Mt. Vernon, IL before being too tired to go on. I got a hotel room, and finished my drive today, Saturday - home mid-afternoon - 216,177 on the clock. Just under 2,100 miles. $440 worth of gas, and a $243 U-haul, meant that actual transportation costs were under $700. I probably got to $700 with coffee and snacks, and had a $100 Hotel Room, bringing my transport total to around $800 and a vacation day, or a full $1000 less than my quote through Intercity. Win!
Not that it's really important, but the seller had initially advertised this as a 1976. When I got there, he was surprised to see 1975 on the title.. No big deal, but my Courier is also a 1975, and a Texas car to start it's life - so it felt a little bit more special, for exclusively emotional reasons.
I ended up getting ~3 owners worth of oral history.
PO3 - Melvin
P02
PO.
PO3, Melvin - bought the car in Arizona sometime in the 80s. He was a military man, and ended up driving the car in the SW, before shipping it with him over to Europe while he was stationed there (car has some Receipts and a Z-club sticker from Holland). Car came back over, and might have spent some time in Alabama before coming back to Texas. It was inspected/registered in Texas in 1994, but Melvin doesn't think he ever got a Texas title, which is confusing.
At some point it went to PO2, possibly after Melvin got moved or stationed again? PO2 put some Marvel Mystery oil down the cylinders, and the "ding" happened to the rear end. PO2 also bought, I kid you not, 5 spare tail-light assemblies.
He knew PO had the 2+2, so he tried to sell it to him for a while - but then needed to move, and ended up dropping it off with PO, probably 10-15 years ago. In 2016, PO and his brothers worked with Melvin (still friends/acquaintances at least) and got a Texas title for the car.
This year, PO decided that he's probably not going to work on the cars, and would rather have the space/cash to build a newer house on his land. So that's my history on the car, and why a Z-car has been a decade in the making, for me.
relevant 280zx pics:
