Friday 13th May 2011

SOTW: Nissan 300ZX

It might be a Nissan, but we'd rather have this than a Bluebird...

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One of the things we like more than anything else on a good Shed of the Week candidate is a decent, well-written advert. It shows that the sender cares enough about their motor to give it a proper sell, and generally (we reckon) that they're an honest enough sort.

We also reckon somebody punctilious enough to bother about a spot of speeling, punctuation and grammar (as well as a well-crafted ad) is also more likely to be the type to bother about a spot of regular servicing, care and general maintenance for their motor.

We have no hard data to back this theory up, of course, but shedding is all about going with gut feelings and intuition, isn't it?

This week, however, we are throwing our 'well-written advert' theory out of the window in favour of this Nissan 300ZX, spotted by PHer Ian Bond (only1ian) and suggested as a squint-and-you'll-get-it ancestor to our new PH fleet Infiniti G37 S (in as much as it's built by Nissan and features a naturally aspirated V6).

But, as tempting as £999 is for so much early 90s Japanese GT metal (tempting provided you like that sort of thing, of course), you do have to be prepared to look past the, er, eccentrically spelled advert, which features such gems as '11 moths MOT', an 'emobilizer' and a 'kenwood sterio'.

We are prepared to overlook the odd advert copy though - well, I am, because I have a well-known soft-spot for performance cars from the far east (and I don't mean Norfolk) - because this 1991 Z32 looks pretty clean.

Okay, so it's not the mighty-quick twin-turbo version, but it's unmodified (except for, from the sound of it, the exhaust), it has plenty of tax and ticket, and it's a rear-drive coupe with a not-unreasonable 222bhp and a manual gearbox. Heck, it's even the T-top version, so you can get yourself suitably sunburned while enjoying your large, fast (ish) Japanese coupe...

Of course, that lack of detail in the advert would mean you'd definitely need to give the car a good inspection, and find out if there's much paperwork with it but, on the face of it, this 300ZX looks like it could be a fine car. So who cares if the vendor isn't a fan of full stops, capital letters or the use of the word 'now' as opposed to 'know'?

Advert is reproduced below

300zx black (n/a manual) **£999** (1991)
90,000 miles £999

know reduced for quick sale formy 300zx, in very good condition, engine and manual gearbox are in very good condition,full electrics, seat mirrors windows, new disc pads all around 11 moths mot 5 months tax car is in every day use for short journeys, no knocks no problems, starts first time, toad alarm n emobilizer,kenwood sterio, full stainless twin exhaust sound beautifull must see

[300bhp/ton]

Great shed. Still think these look modern. Nice to see one without some disaster of a body kit too.

That said, I do prefer the z31 visually....

Edited by 300bhp/ton on Friday 13th May 11:13

[300bhp/ton]

STW2010 said:

These have interested me in the past. I personally think that they look very dated now though

What sort of pace are the non turbo ones? I know they are a bit portly, but I'd have thought they should still be hottish/warm hatch pace with a better top end??

[300bhp/ton]

SSBB said:

It's a nice machine, but I suspect that if I had one, I would always regret not having bought the turbo model.

Guess it depends on budget and running costs though. As Riggers said above, low 7's 0-60mph isn't too shabby (IMO).

So if you really don't need the practicality and don't mind the lower mpg I'd much rather on of these over something like Pug 306, Astra SRI, etc, etc.

[300bhp/ton]

Trusty Steed said:

Sorry, not my cup of tea. Plastic jap crap!

An obvious well thought out, logical, unbiased rational there....

[300bhp/ton]

Adrian W said:

It's a very heavy car, about 1700 kilos I think, so not really got the grunt to peel the skin off a rice pudding, I had a high power Turbo about ten years ago, at the time it was a good fast, fun car. by modern standards the electronics weren't that complicated, just a very low level of integration, so there were boxes everywhere.

It's a £1k shed. What sort of performance are you truly expecting. I'm sorry but I seriously struggle to see how anything sub 8 sec 0-60mph is truly slow when compared to the vast majority of cars on the roads today.

[300bhp/ton]

Mark Wibble said:

there are some tasteful body kits as well.

Really you amaze me