26th-Z

Make me laugh, panchovisa! Me too! I'm an architect. I graduated in 1977 from the University of Florida and then went back to grad school in 1983 for a Masters of Design in Architecture. I worked for large corporations for a while and started my own projects when CAD came into play around 1988. For a long time, I worked for a firm during the day and my own projects at home at night. When I was making as much money on my own as I was being paid, I quit and opened up my own studio in 1994. I do very large custom homes internationally and started offering interior design services last year. I am the current chairman of the City of Sarasota Historic Preservation Board and I also sit on the Board of Directors for the Sarasota Historic Alliance.

John, Try calling Hayes and see if he can help you out http://wirewheel.com/ I know some guys on this coast who deal with him quite a bit. At my pace and cash flow rate, I suspect it will take me three or four years to restore the car - probably longer. There are guys on this site who have much more time in their cars. August 23 marks one year for 26. In the last year, I have set up the shop (Tricky Garage), stripped the car, rebuilt the engine, and accumulated a ton of parts. Yea, Carl, it ain't like the good ol days. Everyone is so old!!!!

Now that you bring up Cannonballing, I ran into Rick Cline at Sebring a couple of weekends ago. I didn't recognize him until he started talking. He didn't recognize me either. He still has both his champoinship Spitfires.

Wow! Thanks for all the praise and support. Mike, I think that's one of the reasons he sold the car - because it was not making sense any more! The only thin reason that makes this have any sense to me is that I have a great deal of the missing pieces. Will, I just may take you up on an all expenses paid weekend in beautiful Sarasota some time. No hurry. I'm going to finish 26 first. It sounds like you have some good experience and that we would have a good time. The metal cutting and welding work is one of the things I have to "sub" out. I can grind with the best of them, though! Alex, for what I have in mind, I budgeted $25,000 for 26. That includes a completely stripped body, engine rebuild and new interior working with a fairly complete car in fairly decent shape to begin with. I will do the vast majority of the work myself. 26 was seriously tired and she came completely apart only because the body shell was going to go into self-destruct mode if I didn't do something about it. 27, on the other hand, is a resurrect from one foot in the grave example and I suspect I will spend $40,000 to get her looking nice again. That's probably low, but keep in mind that I am discounting my time to zero value. If I paid someone to do all this, it would cost me a fortune. I am also fortunate to be in an area of the country that seems to be "restoration heaven". Lot of retirees down here with car collections. Good services are close by and readily available. I forgot to confirm that 27 is matching numbers. She has a 10 / 69 stamped build date. I didn't write it down - the engine number is L24-2162? The seat belts are dated 9 / 69 and (bummer) only one wheel is stamped 10 /69.

Announcing the arrival of Princess 27! Finally! She arrived at dusk last night and by the time we got the car on the ground, it was too dark to photograph. But here are some teasers until I can do something proper in the daylight. First, let me thank each and every one of you who talked me into this. Love you too! :knockedou You may remember my inquiries about hauling the car down to Florida from Delaware. I contacted a guy I met at the Porsche Rennsport Reunion and he turned out to be the best deal of the century. He was easily $300 less than everyone else. Billy Springle, Springle Transport Services, Inc., 14656 63rd Court North, Loxahatchee, Florida 33470 TugRacing@aol.com 561-436-4681 and 561-790-2797. The very highest recommendation for service and ease to work with. I was having lunch with Carl Beck the other day and he snickered: "It can't be much worse than the pictures we saw". Well Carl, its worse. And I haven't seen the car in the daylight yet! But this a good and bad story. Briefly described, 27 is a car that has been sitting outside for the last 15 years and there is no question she looks it. Animals have lived in the car. There is a snake skin shed draped across the console. I think the rust would make some of you faint, yet I have seen others on this site tackle very similar problems. The nice thing about the car is that it came packed FULL of parts - body panels, seats, interior parts, and boxes of "stuff". The seller had been collecting things for all these years and there is some amazing stuff here. The rust: The poor baby will require new rear wheel arches complete to the lower rocker dogleg, new spare tire well, new front inner rockers behind the front fenders, new lower radiator cross member, new hood and front fenders. I haven't totally assessed the frame rails yet, but they look bad, especially around the sway bar mounts. Everything is covered in surface rust. There are miscellaneous rust gaping holes all over the place. The battery box looks good. The cowl looks good. The floors are good and the main rockers are good. The rear valance is all good - even the top under the hatch! Keep in mind that "good" is used in the very liberal sense. Good as opposed to gone or unusable. The car is everything you would imagine from sitting outside so long, but she is reasonably complete. Most of the parts are all there. It still has all the emission controls and it has headers with the air injection ports!?!??? Original braided hoses And most of the interior is still in the car. The parts: This was the most fun - unpacking the car. Spare complete deck lid, spare door, spare interior from a '73 for what that's worth. Brand new Nissan door skins. Brand new Nissan front valance and turn signals. Brand new side marker lights. Brand new set of metal emblems including chromed Z quarter emblems. But this is what made our jaws drop...early, early cars came without hatch glass defrosters...brand new with the Nissan part sticker clear hatch glass. Amazing. And there is all kinds of other stuff - a couple of boxes worth. Well, that's the initial report from the battle line of psychotic automotive restoration. The car is at Jim's in Tampa and I'm throwing a party Saturday to celebrate. Ya'll are invited. Come on over and have a good laugh!

Gav, There is a real good article about your questions concerning restoration in the latest issue of "Vintage Motorsport" magazine. The article discussed two Porsche Gmund coupes that appeared at the Porsche Rennsport Reunion in Daytona, last April. One car is meticulously restored to perfection and is part of the Collier collection in Naples, Florida - Miles Collier's famous collection and museum. The other Gmund belongs to Jerry Seinfeld and could be described as restored with soap and water only. The original hammer marks in the body are very noticable, all the paint is original - damn near everything is still original. I have to say that it was as much fun looking at Jerry's car as it is looking at Mile's. There is great debate in the restoration community about this very topic. Miles has a Porsche 917 in his museum that is as it came off the track at LeMans. The interesting aspect of the car is to see how beat up it is from 24 hours of racing. Other than that, it is just another 917. I think the main arguement is concerning the value of the car's history. All those dents and bashes represent a significant moment in history, and in the case of a winning car, how it looked when it won. I think "unique" has something to do with it. Collectors strive to collect unique artifacts and the value from a collector's point of view has to do with appreciation of the unique. In many cases, especially with racing cars, unique involves the history of the car.

I agree with you, Mike. How ya gonna do tha-et? No matter, I'm interested.

Mr. Stir-it-up here.

What???? He said; "but i may just pull the engine this weekend and go look inside..." and then ChrisA suggested looking at the cam to determine flow and then suggested checking with a mechanical gauge. All I did was agree. WTF? Stirring it up? Is that what you guys think of me? Geez. I'll sit down and shut up!

I would have the same thought, Eric. Especially before I went to the trouble of pulling the engine out.

I always liked this car, Bill

PM me with an e-mail address and stuff to get in contact. Perhaps I can help.

I didn't realize Jesse repro'd the decals. Good Job, Jesse!

It's over here. Hell, we had a sunset! It may still be rockin an rollin in Mickey Mouse World, though. Looks like it went across the State up to Daytona.

Plastic. And the reason Datsun discontinued the hatch vent arrangement goes back to the North American (Canada) testing program. The vents and the ducts beneath filled up with snow and ice - clogging the vent and breaking the plastic when the ice expanded.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2487044027

Just getting back up to my studio and on-line again. It's 10:00 PM and Charlie is in Orlando at the moment. I would imagine Vicky and Scott are fine. Nothing much happened here and North in Tampa. I took a nap and slept most of the afternoon. It rained. Poor Sanibel and Captiva took it, though. I hear Charlotte Harbor is a mess. Pine Key and all. Dad called from Naples with no power and a few downed trees, but he said it wasn't too bad. My thoughts to everyone down there. It must be a real mess. I hear the storm surge put Sanibel and Captiva under 10 feet of water. Ouch!

Yea, exactly. "That's a nice old car..." or "are you talking about your old car?"

No Oh! the smiley faces are gone! Actually, the Z friends I see all the time call each other's cars POS, but we know we are joking. I dated a girl who thought 26 was rather outdated. My ex thought the ride was too harsh. But once, at a stop light, a girl pulled up next to me in a pick-up truck, shouted out; "Nice car" and handed me a slip of paper with her phone number on it. God's honest truth.

11 bidders, but I don't know the high bidder. We don't seem to think the high bidder from last time participated in this one. When I was talking to Jim last night, he suggested Burt was trying to find a blue / blue car like kats' car. Burt really fell for kats' car in California last June. Burt's first Z was blue / blue and he was cream'n every time we were hanging out with kats. Just guessing at what he is up to. We'll find out more when this hurricane goes away.

I see POS a lot from my friends. What does that mean? Is it abbreviation for positive?

I just found this thread, Mike. I got the three glove boxes and am very impressed. Thanks. You guys really did a super job.

You can't use Bristol as an example!!!! Nice try. :knockedou But not the same situation. And "roughly" doesn't count either :classic: I completely accept your view concerning a marketing sales ploy, Alan. F is used with a stretch of the imagination, isn't it? BTW, where the hell have you been? I wrote Len asking about you. The F restoration cars represent a unique chapter in the story of the 240Z. I took the chance to visit PierreZ when I was in California. I didn't get a chance to see Les Canaday's place. Just looking at the shop gives you an idea of what happened and how well the cars were restored. Evidently, Pierre took the cars apart and the body shells were prepared at another shop. As the painted bodies returned, Pierre et al reassembled each car in Pierre's shop not more than one or two at a time. Pierre assembled the engine / transmission with the sub frame / front suspension on a stand and lowered the car on it using the lift. I saw pictures of cars covered in foam padding for protection while they were hand assembled. Pierre said that Nissan had a lot of trouble coming up with parts. There are pictures of many cars, some with a/c, wheels, and one custom built for the editor of AutoWeek magazine. There is also a record of news briefs, press releases and show events surrounding the affair. For the collector market, these cars represent a restoration standard. I can't believe there isn't a regestry. It is a shame how things get disjointed and interpreted incorrectly. Just last month, "Roundel" magazine's Mark Calabrese reported that Albrecht designed the 240Z in his discussion of all the cool cars he has owned. Just a shame.

I know Burt and the car. Burt was with us - the Tampa Zcrowd - at the national convention. I don't talk to him much anymore because all he does is e-mail me pictures of gross fat chicks and I am demanding a written apology sent by registered mail. I don't know what he is doing. All the local e-mail between the Tampa guys is "look what Burt is up to now!" I wonder often if Burt knows what he is doing. Its all just too funny, so I sit back and enjoy the show. I will vouch for the car. I took many of the pictures in the add. It is very nice and is one of those cars that is collected, not driven. I would certainly advise looking at it before offering a bid. And if Burt is reading this: "You go big boy".

Not exactly. As I understand it, Burt withdrew the car before the end of the auction last time. I don't know any of the current bidders off hand.