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Hello All, I was wondering if anyone knows of a reputable mechanic to which I can bring a 240Z I'm considering buying. A close to Groton CT as possible is always good Also, if I get the car I'll probably want to know a mechanic in NYC as well. Anybody have good references or places to look? Thanks! Gabe

Hi ktm, Thanks for the quick and thorough response! As for your question about whether or not this car will be my only transportation, I take the subway wherever I need to go in the city. The car would just be for fun trips out of the city. That being said I'd prefer to have the car work when I wanted to take those trips and not have to hope it starts or hope it takes me there and back. What would you say is the longest reasonable trip for one of these guys without a mechanic in the passenger seat? Oh, another question. Do the 240Z's use unleaded gas without problems? I just realized that perhaps I'd have to find leaded gas. Is that the case? As for pricing, I should be getting some better pictures soon. Here are the ones I have at the moment:

Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum and was hoping I could ask some pretty broad general questions. First, some background. I'm considering buying a 1973 240Z that I've found with around 60,000 miles. I've never owned (or driven for any amount of time more than a few minutes) a manual car which brings me to question number one: 1) Is it cruel and evil to buy this car and learn on it? Will it just explode under my unskilled hands? I am also far from a mechanic. I've taken seats out of my current car (a '90 Volvo 240) and replaced the seat foam, and taken apart a bit of the sunroof to prevent leaks, but that's probably the extant of my mechanic genius. So, second question: 2) Do I need to be a mechanic to get any pleasure out of this car, or at least keep it healthy and in good condition. The last thing I want is to buy a well preserved car and turn it to crap. I'm more than happy to buy parts whenever necessary and learn as much as I can, but I don't have a large amount of space to operate on the car, nor do I have a huge array of tools past some ratchets. I'd prefer not to have the car live in a mechanic's shop. Will that be the its life? How much maintenance is usually required? I live in Brooklyn NY. It does snow here, quite a bit 3) I'm assuming that driving this car on slushy wet roads is just out of the question both from a handling point of view and from a rust point of view. Is this the case? This car would be mostly for fun and trips and such. However I'd prefer to not be half-way to delaware and get stuck. 4) I know it probably depends on the individual car, but are 240's in general reliable enough that I could feel comfortable driving long distances without a cell phone or a trailer full of spare parts (and a person in the trailer tha knows how to install said spare parts)? I'm hopefully going to look at the car this week with a friend of mine who both knows a lot about cars and used to own a 240Z that he did large amounts of work on. 5) Is there anything besides rust that a car doofus like myself can look at? The price is $7000 or best offer. Is that an outrageous amount? It's been garage kept and well looked after (or so he claims, as I've yet to look at it myself). I think that's basically it. I'm trying to decide whether or not to get the car. I have my Volvo but my garage is too small for it. Thus the car has to live really far away and I never drive it. The 240Z on the other hand is small enough to fit in the garage. So basically my final question: 6) Obviously this is a bias place to ask, but, should I buy it? Thanks immensely! Gabe