Hello, I'm new to z car world. I have always wanted to own a z car but one thing or another always came up. Now that I am retired I finally got the go ahead from the missus to look. I saw this nice looking one on Ebay and just wanted some opinions on it. What do you guys think?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2407765831&category=6187

but if you really wanted the car i would have it looked at or look at it yourself and then make sure he has a paper trail that shows that the car is as low mileage as he says

I owned a factory stock and well maitained '78 280Z from '80 to '92, so I know these cars pretty well.

From the pictures I've seen, this car is completely original right down to the green insert in the shift knob, the hub caps, and how the rear valance above the bumper arcs down in the center. It also appears to be in very good condition. Everything inside looks to be well maintained or new. Like the lettering on the controls, the condition of the original steering wheel, door panels, and weatherstripping.

If I were looking for a Z car to buy that didn't need a lot of work, I'd be interested in one of this calibre. But, I'd sure want to see documentation to validate the owner's claims. And since you're only about 60 miles from where the car is, i'd suggest a juant up north before you commit.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

Looks pretty darn good to me too...

Perfect looking dash, everything under the hood looks to be close to stock, not to much changed..

Only thing I see that might make it look better would be new carpet, but that's really pretty minor.

If he can show proof of the low mileage, the car ought to be worth second look and is possibly worth more than 5K. Not good if you are the buyer, but it looks to be worth considerably more than the typical 75-78 280's you see on Ebay.

and this is amazingly clean inside. I would say the price is a tad high , but as has been said before I would really verify that mileage! I'm kinda worried what his resrve is, it might be 6500 or so. Any higher and I would prob pass simply because A) cant afford it and I would like to restore SOME of it myself. Thats most of the fun.

But if you have the funds, i would say go for it. Since your so close i would definitelty drive down and check it out in person. The carpet will need replacing but no big thing. This mustve been garaged all the time because the SEAT BELT light and the other one are bright red and blue. Even mine are a little faded! That dash is awesome!

Thank you guys for your great replies. 2ManyZs said that he thought the carpet should be replaced. If the car has low mileage then the carpet is probably in good shape except maybe faded. Couldn't you just dye it then? Does someone make carpet dye? A few of you guys mentioned documentation for the low miles. I wrote the owner and he says he did a lot of the work like oil changes and stuff himself. So there is some but not a lot of documentation. He says that there are a lot of things on a car that you could tell if it had 42,000 miles or 142,000. He says that on this car everything is keeping with a car that has 42,000 miles. Does this sound fishy?