My wife told me about this 1976 Datsun 280Z one divine, sun-drenched, humidity-free day recently. She'd spotted it while out running errands and texted me about it, although she didn't know what it was. She didn't send a picture, either. So, when she got home, we dropped the top on our '91 Corvette and bolted over just for kicks and giggles.
Best to take advantage of these perfect days—we get so few of them.
I knew what it was the instant I saw it, but I guess it's been so long now that a non-car person like my wife wouldn't necessarily recognize one.
The 280Z was an evolution of the legendary 240Z, which debuted in Japan in 1969 as the Fairlady Z and went on sale here as a 1970 model. Datsun sold the 280Z in the United States from 1975 through 1978, making it the final iteration of the original S30-generation Z before the considerably more civilized 280ZX arrived for 1979.
Ostensibly, the biggest difference between a 280Z and the original 240Z was what was under the hood: a larger, fuel-injected overhead-cam inline six.
But there were plenty of other changes along the way, including the big, federally mandated safety bumpers that appeared up front in 1973 and out back in 1974. They added weight while mucking up an otherwise wonderfully crisp, clean design.
For 1974, the 240Z's 2.4-liter overhead-cam inline six was punched out to approximately 2.6 liters, and the car became the 260Z. For 1975, Datsun went to roughly 2.8 liters and christened it the 280Z. The engine actually displaced 2,753 cc, and, more importantly, it ditched the troublesome carburetors of the 260Z in favor of Bosch-derived L-Jetronic electronic fuel injection.
That wasn't just techno-wizardry for the sake of techno-wizardry. The additional displacement helped compensate for the weight the Z had accumulated thanks to safety equipment and emissions hardware, while fuel injection helped Datsun meet increasingly stringent emissions requirements and improved drivability. The result was 149 horsepower by the SAE net rating used in the U.S.—a healthy improvement over the 260Z.
While the fuel-injected 280Z wasn't quite the barn-burner the 1970 240Z had been, it was an improvement over the 260Z and remained one of the most appealing combinations of performance, style and affordability available to an American buyer.
Fuel injection as we know it today was still very much in its infancy in the 1970s. The Datsun's Bosch-derived L-Jetronic system was a glimpse of where the automotive world was headed.
For your $17,500, and that's a reasonably asking price, you get a car that is not only not a Mazda RX-7, but a fifty-year-old Z-car that may or may not still be wearing the British Racing Green it was originally painted—or perhaps not. Hard to tell.
The body isn't perfect. I didn't see any obvious signs of overspray, but the paint appears overly thick in places.
There are also a number of missing badges, a telltale sign that they were removed for painting or repainting. Perhaps they broke when being removed. While this isn't a "catalog car" like a Corvette—meaning there isn't quite the same massive cottage industry supplying every conceivable part—the good news is that 280Z parts and reproduction pieces are still readily available.
The aftermarket rims are nice, but for my money I'd want the O.G.s as part of the deal.
And here's where the 280Z gets interesting.
Despite what you might expect from a sports car of this era, you could get one with either a four-speed manual or an optional three-speed automatic. Steering was manual, and the car retained the wonderfully simple mechanical character that made the original Z so appealing.
No doubt, she's a handful to drive—but a different kind of handful than, say, a 1976 Corvette. The Corvette rides and handles like a limousine by comparison. For a car that was purportedly a sports car, I'm not sure that's necessarily a good thing, either.
But that's also part of the charm.
The original Z was never really a stripped-down, race-car-for-the-street kind of sports car. It was a relatively affordable, lightweight Japanese interpretation of the European GT—something that gave ordinary Americans a taste of the sort of style and driving experience that had previously required a much fatter wallet.
And then, in 1979, Datsun rebooted the Z with the 280ZX.
The transformation was significant. The new Z grew larger, heavier, quieter and considerably more luxurious. Datsun was deliberately moving the car toward the grand-touring/personal-luxury end of the spectrum, and contemporary road testers noticed it immediately. Car and Driver essentially described the 280ZX as a more comfortable, refined and luxury-oriented evolution of the old Z, noting that the new car was strongly biased toward the luxury side of life.
As far as sales went, it was a smart move. It broadened the Z's appeal and made it considerably more livable. It also helped further mainstream the Datsun brand in the United States.
But, as is so often the case, making something appeal to more people also meant sanding off some of the rough edges that made it special in the first place.
Datsun's transition to Nissan branding was well underway by the early 1980s, and by 1983 Nissan was essentially replacing the Datsun nameplate in the United States. But the company has built a Z-car of some ilk, off and on, ever since.
