I have no idea what to think about this. It just showed up in the auto magazine on Flipboard.

Hummmm….to each his own - I guess. I would not expect that from Hot Rod Magazine. In the 50's the guys in my home town that assembled Hot Rods out of junk yard parts - actually took pride in their work - tried very hard to put something of obvious build quality together. I didn't see anything in this effort to be proud of ...

Carl B.

Roadkill is about having fun with cars, and I think they accomplished that. That Z was clapped out when they got it, the alternative probably would've been sending it to the crusher.

That being said, I wouldn't mind having that set of louvers....

I would rename the show: "2 Fools with a Camera and Car".

The quest for content and reality tv product has set a new low.

Im not quiet sure what to think about it. At least these guys are not cursing, yelling at each other and throwing crap around the workshop all the time like so many others do to try and make their show watchable.

Would have liked to hear the reactions from the hotrod guys.

Chas

Heres the point of view from someone in CA: I'm a former muscle car (specifically Mustang) guy and I have been reading Hot Rod magazine since I was about 12 years old. At least in my opinion the Datsun Z is one of the best hot rod options considering the following:

You want a car that handles

It must be pre-smog (1975 or earlier)

"Light is Might" as our friends at lotus like to say

Room in the engine bay is a massive +

It never hurts to look good

If you take those things into account the only real American option is a Corvette, or maybe a Corvair. Corvettes are crazy expensive at every aspect and there are a ton of them while Corvairs are weird rear-engine death traps without enough following to find parts easily (not to mention super ugly). Everything else is massive, heavy and was never designed to be balanced and handle around a corner. You can see why the Datsun is the clear choice

Personally I would not have swapped the motor but they bought that car with an "undesirable" engine swap so frankly it was probably destined for a junk yard anyway. I actually applaud Hot Rod magazine for realizing what other failing magazines have failed to understand: They are content producers and the medium which they deliver their content is changing. While other magazines are reducing content and increasing ads in a downward spiral to bankruptcy Hot Rod has double downed on creating quality content and embraced the same delivery method that is killing their print magazine (the internet). This episode might be offensive to purists but if they had done the same thing to a corvette people would be flaming them in another forum. Exhibit: Corvette Hack Track Test - Hot Rod Magazine .

The concept and entertainment value is whats important here. Like Carl said, Hot Rodding is about taking what you have or what you can find cheap and making it awesome. I guess its distinctly different from the car restoration purity

Think I'll have to weld one of those custom door latches onto my car!

Hope "throw it together as fast as possible" shows like this don't foster an attitude that workmanship doesn't matter. Seems like it would make a real race mechanic throw a wrench through the TV.

Like seeing a swap that hasn't been done before, though. Since I've got a Chevy six (230) truck, I'd like to see the big six, 292, turbo'd and swapped in a (played) Z. They were for dump trucks, school buses, pulling trailers, etc. Plenty in junkyards for cheap. It was discussed on HybridZ, don't think anybody's done it yet. Wouldn't be much of a sports car, but maybe a drag car with huge slicks and drive train to take advantage of all that torque.

Me and my brother were actually considering this swap for my Z but I decided I wanted to keep the straight six for simplicitys sake. It's actually a clean swap, even if the rest of the rest of the car is thrashed. I think its alot better than rotting in a scrap yard, and there having fun. I would be pissed if they trashed a nice clean car, but that's certainly not the case, and now the car will likely continue to life on and possibly get bought and fixed up.

It is more entertaining than the latest crime drama or "Dancing with the Bachelorette Survivor."

I have seen that episode along with the Dodge Charger episode they did. It is entertaining in my book and safe to say I would not go the same route with any car I owned. However, the concept of taking nothing and making it in to "something" is not new as there are tons of other guys doing the same thing to other cars and Z's alike. Before I found my current 240z I was feeling the Z itch really bad and had figured if I found a rusty Z for dirt cheap I would just fix what was needed for it to be safe, throw some triple Webers on it, and just have fun. If the objective of owning and working on cars is to have fun then those guys are winning in spades.

Entertaining. Making something from nothing is always fun to watch. There was no pretense, no flash, and no made up drama. Just a couple guys with a goal.

Dennis