gjsmith66

I was able to find most of the original pictures that are at a resolution of 756 x 504, if you click through the pictures on http://www.z-car.com/stef.htm you will see the better resolution shots. Gary http://www.z-car.com/blog/2008/01/02/where-i-have-been

Wow, I appreciate everyone's replies. I was hesitant to reopen an 8 year old thread, but I thought based on some of the original comments it may be useful for folks to know what I was doing. Just to add some more details, the 260Z I dismantled was originally owned by Stefanos Damianakis, who was the original founder of the Internet Z-Car Club, and he started the first mailing list for Z-cars. He was very proud of his 260Z, and had done a ton of work on it, including building an excellent L28 that had been bored and stroked to 3.0L. He crashed his car sometime around 1994, and being in school (I think Princeton), he needed to get some $$$ for the remains. I bought it from him, along with a truck full of spare parts that he collected over the years. The L28 ended up in my Red 72 240Z (which was blood red, but appeared pink in some of those older pictures), and I used many of the spares in my 70 Black race car that I tracked at Summit Point for many years before I moved on to tracking my 94 RX-7. I ultimately sold off all my cars when I purchased a nice Lotus Elise in 2005. The Red Z went to a fellow in Northern Virginia (wish I had never sold it, it was perfect), and the Black Z went to a couple in St Louis who were going to put a V8 into it. I believe they picked it up Christmas Eve 2000. The awesome (300hp) Rebello 3.1L that I had in the Black Z was sold to a fellow in New York state. I believe that I have the original 260Z pictures at a higher resolution somewhere, and if I find them, I will post them so that folks here can see the detail better. The frame rails were completely rusted through, as were the floor boards. The accident bent the forward frame rails, and cracked them in several spots. In addition, the left strut tower was about three inches higher than the right. While I am sure someone with a lot of time on their hands could have attempted to fix it, in 1995 no one wanted it. I offered it up for free on the mailing list at the time, but had no interest.

Hey, I happened to stumble upon this discussion the other day. I know it was from 8 years ago! But, I am the guy who cut up that 260Z shell, now over 15 years ago. The digital cameras were not great back then, I can assure you that the frame of that Z was in very bad shape, and it had been in an accident. In hindsight, perhaps someday someone would have liked that shell. In 1995, I could not give it away, and the only way to dispose of it was to cut up and scrap it. If you see all the other Z's I have had in my life, please understand this was not an easy thing to do. In fact, I actually rescued that Z from a guy name Stef who had crashed it. I stripped it and sold and gave away its parts for many years after that... So, the rest of the story... Gary www.z-car.com www.z-car.com/blog