Tj Posted June 5, 2011 Posted June 5, 2011 .... Does that make me crazy? Hi, I'm Tj and I'm hopefully buying a zed next weekend. Long story short I've owned a current body shape Ford Focus XR5 for the past two years and I've fallen out of love with it and all I see when I look at it now is just money evaporating into nothingness. Don't get me wrong, they're a great car, fantastic car actually, but I'm just not enjoying it like I thought I would. I've got a long-ish history with classic J-Tin as my family and myself have been involved in club level motorsport for a very very long time. I've been an active member of Hills District Car Club for 16 years (I'm 27 now, joined as soon as I was old enough to start entering motorkhanas regardless of the fact that I could barely reach the pedals in my Mini K 1100) and grew up surrounded my more 1200s, 1600's 180B's and Zeds than you could throw a whole bucket of sticks at. My family's alliance however had, already at this stage, long layed with Mitsubishi. My dad and my Godfather rallied a GA Galant and then an LA Lancer back in the 80's. My sisters first car was a GD Galant that eventually got handed down to me for my first car. I only sold it because it was developing a terminal case of tin-worm. All the while growing up however, tucked away in the garage was the car that seems to have rekindled a flame that has led me here. Many years ago my dad bought a rather rare 75 GC Galant Hardtop Coupe. He had all intentions of restoring it but never quite finished it. Fast forward 15 or so years to now and my Girlfriend and I have bought it from him and finished it ourselves for it to be her daily driver. But now I want something for myself. We're 99.999% finished it's second rebuild just now where we've slotted an N/A 4G63 twin cam under the hood. Check out my build thread over here if you're into that sort of thing. With all of the research I had made throughout that project I spent a lot of time on forums like Japanese Nostalgic Car where I got bitten by the classic japanese bug hard! There's a bloke on there from sydney who's built a KPGC10 skyline and posted 60+ pages of detailed progress which held me captivated for months just wading through the work he'd done. This inspired me a lot, not only to start a build thread for my own project but to put in the extra effort to make things right and to clean things up and make them presentable, often costing no more than my own time rather than just slapping it together still covered in 35+ years of gunk. It also introduced me to 6 cylinder Datsuns in a big way too. Pretty soon it started me hankering for some L-series lovin of my own. I initially wanted (and still do!) a 240K to build into a Kenmeri GTR clone. That may be a future project when I've got the time and money. So when I started playing with the idea of getting rid of my XR5 for something much cheaper the idea of something classic japanese seemed obvious. For nothing more than my own curiosity, not expecting to find anything affordable or desirable I started searching for any Datsuns for sale. And that's when I saw it. And now, even if I don't buy this particular car, I want one. I found a mint, bone stock original 260Z 2+2. If there's one thing i appreciate more than anything on a classic car its an original interior. And this car has one of the best. I'm hesitant at the moment to post which car exactly it is as I don't want anyone to beat me to the punch. Especially considering I have to travel interstate to buy it. What I would appreciate is a few pointers for things lo look out for in the way of common rust areas an mechanical faults. Y'know, the usual things. Anyway, that's my story. Hopefully, it'll include a Zed very soon! Quote
zzzzed Posted June 5, 2011 Posted June 5, 2011 not crazy at all mate.. I agree the xr5 is an great car, but there is no way in hell I would swap my 240z for one Quote
sco_aus Posted June 5, 2011 Posted June 5, 2011 Welcome mate. You have made a wise move, cos when that Ford is about 5-6 years old it will be worth less than a zed anyway and a lot less fun. The usual rust spots tend to be in the doors, around windows on the front and in the hatch, hinges for the hatch, floor pans and sills, cowel infront of the windscreen and the guards. Personally mine had/has it bad in the guards and a little around lots of small places. It really depends on the history of the car. Quote
Administrators gav240z Posted June 5, 2011 Administrators Posted June 5, 2011 Not crazy at all, but then again you are asking a bunch of crazy people if you're nuts . Nice conversion of the Galant looks very tidy. I'm sure you'll like it here with all us crazies. Quote
Quandary Posted June 9, 2011 Posted June 9, 2011 What sco_aus said, but also the firewall, battery tray and front steering components if its a vented bonnet. Quote
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