Im 16, New To The Forum, And In Love With The Z

[FastWoman]

Hey Francis, welcome!  My first Z was a beautiful, gold '75 280 that I bought at the age of 21.  It was my third car and fit like a glove.  I sold it 13 years later when it became impractical for a small family.  But for those 13 years, I commuted in style!

 

I had to return to the 280Z later in life.  I bought a silver '78 in 2009 from the western end of Virginia.  It first entered the US market in Louisville, Kentucky.  I did a lot of work on the mechanicals, and everything is in top-notch shape.  (Those who know me will attest that means much more than my changing the oil and replacing the wiper blades!)  The car runs as well as a 280Z can run with the old analog EFI -- better than a carb'ed engine -- and it will run even better once Lenny releases his long-awaited Hellfire ECU.)  The car does have a few very minor rust issues that I have yet to address, but it looks great and runs great, and there is no structural rust.

 

We're now thinking of selling the Z and our Miata to skinny down to a single sports car -- a T-top 280ZX turbo.  (I have plans to look at a couple this coming weekend.)  That will give us the open sky of the Miata, as well as the overhead framing of a hardtop.  (I've owned two convertibles now, and I hate ragtops!  They leak, and you can't lock them.)  I'll miss my 280Z, but the 280ZX turbo has a few cool things of its own.  I'll love having the extra garage space, and more importantly, I'll love being able to drive the car more (as my other half has an irrational hatred of hardtops).

 

This is by way of saying my car will soon be on the market too.  If you're interested, PM me.  :-)

 

Welcome again!

Sarah

[siteunseen]

Ooh ooh! I wanna see!

Without the wrist corsage this is pretty close. 

 

[Kurbycar32]

Francis, let me tell you a tale..

     I'm 32 now, but when I was 14 I picked up a used Mustang and intended on rebuilding it for 2 years before my 16th birthday.  Technically my first car was a 5.0 convertible Mustang with leather and premium everything, which sounds awesome but it was an enormous PITA.  I did get the car rebuilt and running in time for me to start driving but like any old car the little stuff would break almost daily.  Things like turn signal switches, window regulators, rear end (16 year old in a stick shift 5.0..), oil pumps, alternators, catalytic converters etc. and being a broke teenager I couldn't keep up with the dozens or sometimes hundreds of dollars in costs.  Ultimately I hated that car because it was a bad daily driver and I couldn't afford to keep up with the expenses.  My best advice is to go buy a super reliable car to get to school/work in, then buy a Z that you aren't forced to rely on.  Also at 16 you are almost guaranteed to hit a drive through window or trash can and jack up your car so make sure its a disposable econobox when that happens.  I'm a big fan of Ford Rangers, they are dirt cheap and pretty much invincible plus the truck will be extremely useful for the next 10 years of your life (or forever)

[HaZmatt]

^^^ What he said

[Steve49841]

Kurbycar said what I've been thinking.  It isn't that anyone wants to pour water on someone's enthusiasm but there is a reality to owning one of these cars.   If you look at the adds you will see a lot of them sound the same with sentences like "started the project xx years ago and lost interest" "ran out of money" "my life changed".  This is a long drawn out difficult and expensive undertaking, proceed with caution

[FastWoman]

I don't completely agree with these last bits of advice, but I mostly agree.  As a young driver, you're probably going to wreck the car.  It might not be a bad wreck, but you'll likely do it.  Which would you rather repair, an S30 or some ubiquitous, semi-disposable econobox?  Even if YOU are a perfect driver, all the texting clowns around you will eventually run their cars into yours.  I'd bet money on it.  Any high school parking lot (and the surrounding few blocks) is an extreme danger zone.  It gets better on a university campus (where the drivers have at least a couple of years of experience driving), but there's still danger, especially wherever there's  a concentration of kids with their noses buried in a smart phone.

 

The advice of a Z as a second vehicle is good -- AFTER you've been driving your econobox for a couple of years.  Your econobox should be a stick, so that you will eventually feel at home with a stick S30 (almost all of them are stick, which is what you want anyway).

 

The part that I disagree with, somewhat, is the whole reliability issue.  A car is as reliable as the maintenance put behind it.  Once a car depreciates to the point that you can afford it, it has a few years/miles on it, and it has likely been neglected for a while.  So most old cars are unreliable.  However they can be made reliable if you address the numerous issues that have been neglected over the years.  There is no reason an old, or even ancient, car would be any less reliable than an 8 or 10 year old car, for instance.  My '94 Miata is as reliable as my '92 Saturn, which is as reliable as my '78 280Z.  When we hit the road for a trip out of town, it's usually the Z we take.  We could take the '09 truck, but we trust all of our vehicles equally.

 

That said, it will take you a couple of years to work your way through the various neglect items on your car.  There are gremlins hiding in most old cars, and they have to be flushed out.  Making an old car right is a lot of work.  But you can do it.  It just makes sense to have a reliable econobox during that awkward period starting out.  (Our econobox is the Saturn.)

 

Which econobox is right for you?  I'd honestly look for a car that's driven daily.  It's stable, and what you see is what you get.  You also want a car with enough room under the hood to work on the engine.  I find that the Miata and early Saturns (both 4 cyl) have adequate working room for most purposes, although they might be a bit old for what you want.  As a rule of thumb, if you can open the hood, look down through the engine compartment, and see either pavement or bottom shield, then you can probably work on it.  Beware of any car with its engine half buried under the cowl!

 

Anyway, don't fear old cars.  Just don't fully trust them until you've owned them a couple of years and have chased out all the gremlins.

[gwri8]

Hi Francis, ditto on what these folks are saying.  Being 16 and owning a Z would be awesome.  Maybe you are an excellent driver and can turn a wrench, but sometimes stuff happens.  My son is now 17. His first car is a 02' Celica GT/5spd.  Great car.  It's been put in a ditch once (his fault) and tapped in a parking lot twice ( not his fault). All of this in a year. Still runs great and He is a much better driver now. I would hate for that to happen to your Z my Z.

 

Most of the people here love their Z's and love to work on them. You probably will too. The fact is, they have another vehicle to drive when re-building or picking up parts for their Z. Not that they are undependable, but they are 40+ years old sports cars and require some attention no matter what shape they are in.  And when you go out and about, your date will probably appreciate little things like A/C and heat ::.

 

Keep your eye out for the Z. One will find you and follow you home.

[gwri8]

Geez Siteunseen, I think your 77 could sense bad thoughts from you and gave you a pre-emptive strike. That's what mine does to me anyways…..  .

[siteunseen]

ChriZtine is what I'll name her. 

[rossiz]

more of the same advice from someone who's been wrenching on their daily driver for 30 yrs...

 

my first car was my grandfather's 71 chevy nova 4-dr. it had gone through all 6 of my cousins (all boys) and my older brother, as their collective first car, so it had been abused beyond recognition, driven through hayfields at night, heck, my brother actually hit a washing machine with it while ripping through the woods on a fire road. it had 200K miles on it, and everything that wasn't dented or rusted was broken or missing. 

 

but it ran, and it was mine.

 

driving that car and keeping it running was a rite of passage in my family, and it was the absolute perfect first vehicle. in the first year i had 2 accidents (both my fault - one the very first week i had my license) and both required that i go to a local junkyard, pull off fenders, hood, grille, radiator, etc. and replace if i wanted to have a car to drive. it was a huge education and because it was a cheap, common dirtbox of a car, i could keep up with the "cost of ownership" while learning what i needed to keep it going. prior to the car i built/modified many dirt bikes and already had a good working mechanical sense, but a dirt bike is different because you don't need to depend on it to get you to school/work/etc.

 

my second car was another nova, but a much sexier 2-dr and i hot-rodded it into a very cool ride to have fun, impress the guys and attempt to attract the girls.

 

and i agree w/fastwoman about the reliability - you can definitely make the z a solid daily driver, but it will take a while to flush out all the decades of issues and that may take $$ that you may not have, thus leaving you w/out a car for those down times, or worse yet, you may have to drive it when it needs a fix simply because you need transpo and have no $$...

 

sooo... bottom line advice is to get a z as a second car/project and when it's really done, and you've put some good miles on it to be confident, ditch the econobox if you want, or keep it for those times when you need to haul a drum kit to your friend's gig or move into your first apartment