1972 Datsun Fairlady Z - The Other Half

I guess it's inevitable that to keep great cars from the past on the road, they're all probably going to meet the fate of this 1972 Datsun 240Z. Meaning, they're going to be resto-modded up the wazoo. I'm not the biggest fan of resto-mods since if I wanted something modern, I'd buy it. Modernizing an old classic, especially if it changes the overall appearance of it, I find it be of waste of time and money.  Unless, as Jay Leno points out, what's being restored was a basket case to begin with. Let's hope this handsome devil started out that way. Seems someone spent a pretty penny fixing it up too seeing it's for sale with an asking price of $88,000. NADA guidelines peg original 240Z's "high retail" at $53,000. Quite the spread. Even in these Covid-price-inflated times where Chevy Cruze's with 100K on them are going for ten-large. 

Can't blame someone for attempting to recoup what they spent on this although I'd question the wisdom of someone dropping ninety-plus grand on it. Rest assured, someone will. Speaking of Leno, this car is like something you'd find in his garage. The other half, as they say, really are different from you and me. 

These cars were game changers since they took everything the best sports cars or GT's did at the time and they did it even better. Overhead cam engines, disc brakes, independent suspension. And they didn't overcharge for that stuff either. All that's a moot point on this car seeing everything that made this great fifty-year ago has been tossed. 

Resto-modifications include a General Motors built, LS-1 V-8 that makes, allegedly, more than 400 horsepower (dyno-sheets included!), a Tremec, 6 speed manual transmission and a total rebuild and modernization of the brakes and front and rear suspensions.  Seats have been upgraded to your obligatory Recaro's. They sure look comfy. 

Below is the over-written online copy for it that reads like a cheesy real estate ad. Again, $88,000 is a lot of money for this car - good luck getting it insured for anything over book value too. Then again, if you that asking price donesn't make you light headed, you probably don't care as you contemplate adding it your personal "Jay Leno Garage". Comment below if you're interested and I'll do my best to hook you up. Only thing I'd ask is you let me take a spin in it. 

LS1 Swap - A/C - T56 6Speed - Recaro Seats - Carbon Accents

This is Fairlady Z Resto-Mod is the ultimate street machine. Countless hours and dollars were invested in designing, fabricating and restoring this car. The vision of the build was to turn a classic Datsun 240Z sports car into a classic Datsun 240Z supercar. It was a rust-free California car prior to the bare-metal restoration. This car is show-quality throughout. The exterior body is very straight with great gaps. It was painted GM Crystal White Tri-Coat, which is absolutely stunning. The hood rise and all the trim were painted Satin Black. The car is dressed with Cobra mirrors, halogen smoked headlights, custom emblems, carbon-fiber dipped front and rear bumpers, carbon-fiber front and rear spoilers with matching door handles. The car has a great stance on 16" Pana Sport Racing wheels that were dipped in carbon-fiber on front and back. The wheel center caps were dipped in white carbon-fiber to match the exterior color. The wheels are wrapped with new Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R tires that stick to the pavement. The all-new black interior is tastefully done. Some interior upgrades include aluminum Fairlady Z door sills, MOMO Competition steering wheel, AutoMeter Phantom gauges, Recaro bucket seats, black billet window cranks and shifter with Hurst knob, Performance billet pedals, custom Z accessories, Vintage Air and Heat, custom sound system, roll bar and rear strut tower bar, which were painted to match the exterior. The engine compartment is nicely detailed throughout. This car is powered by a GM LS1 V8 engine with 400+ horsepower. Dyno sheets are included. The intake manifold was dipped in carbon-fiber and the valve covers were painted to match the exterior. It's equipped with many upgrades, such as a custom cold-air intake with K&N filter, Taylor 409 Racing red wires, Aeromotive fuel pressure regulator, AN fittings, Optima red-top battery and custom strut tower bar. The engine is cooled by a custom aluminum radiator with dual electric fans, carbon-fiber dipped cover and aluminum reservoir. The engine breathes through a custom exhaust system with Sanderson headers and Flowmaster mufflers. The engine is coupled to a Tremec 6-speed manual transmission with hydraulic clutch. The power is transferred to the pavement through the Infiniti Q45 R200 VLSD rear end. It has custom billet rear differential mounts and billet axles with C/V halfshafts. The undercarriage is nicely detailed throughout. It's equipped with custom-made subframe connectors from front to back. It has rack & pinion steering. The suspension system consists of MSA camber plates, MSA coilovers, Eibach springs, Tokiko illumine 5-way adjustable inserts, and Suspension Techniques front and rear sway bars. The braking system consists of Modern Motorsports Extreme 13" PBR four-wheel disc brakes with a Wilwood master cylinder. WOW, the list goes on but its going to take a serious enthusiast to pilot this Z.

2006 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS - The Last Monte Carlo

This 2006 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS popped up in a Facebook ad on me the other day and bit I on it. Despite it's age, a cloth interior and no power adjuster on the passenger side front seat, with a fairly minimal 62,000 miles on the clock and an asking price of $9,994 I did the mental gymnastics necessary to to convince myself that it would be worth my time to make an appointment to take it for a spin. These days, finding anything I like for ten-grand is a gift from the used-car gods. 

This car is part of the last run of Monte Carlo's that began in 2000 and wrapped up in 2007. When GM pulled the plug on them they didn't just end a production run on a venerable GM nameplate - they sealed shut a once stolid market segment that began, arguably, with the 1958 four-passenger Ford Thunderbird, that GM jump-started with the 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix and 1970 Monte Carlo and one that, good, bad or indifferent, defined 1970's domestic auto-mobilia. The worst was when GM stopped making the Monte Carlo it made nary a headline; the only folks crying afoul where ones, like me, who love personal luxury cars. 

For 2006, Chevrolet updated the 2000 model redesigning the dashboard fascia, ruining the idiosyncratic look of the original design in my humble opinion, and replaced the polarizing\oddly shaped sheet metal forward of the B-pillar's with the far more conventional if somewhat staid front end from the Impala. They had to massage the doors since the character lines on the previous model blended in with the fenders. Everything aft of the B-pillar remained the same. All that front end work doing away with a lot of the distinctiveness of the 2000-2005 Monte Carlo making "The Last Monte's" two-door Impala's akin to 1995-1999 Monte Carlo's that where four-door Lumina's. There's nothing wrong with that seeing that I've always thought the front end styling of my car, a 2002 Dale Earnhardt Monte Carlo, more than a tad cluttered in the designer's attempts to ape the lines of the swoopy, 1973-1977 Monte Carlo. Those cars you either adore or abhor. As pleasant and almost innocuous as the reskin was, us coupe lovers do like a little more zing in our meatloaf rather than our cars being just two-door sedans. 

The biggest difference GM made for these cars for 2006 was under the hood - especially on these SS models. This thing here stuffed with a transverse-mounted version of the GM LS3, 5.3-liter V-8 engine that I have in my Tahoe. Dubbed "LS4", to make it fit, GM cast a unique shorter block and crank for it and moved the starter mounting from the engine block to the transmission. Things are tight enough in my car's engine bay I can't imagine how difficult it is to work on this thing. GM put these into these cars through 2007, the Impala SS, Pontiac Grand Prix GXP and Buick LaCrosse "Super" from 2005-2009. 

If this car does anything right it's that it's fast. Really fast. Or feels really fast. And sounds great going fast too. Thanks to a mountain of torque at the slightest tap of the gas the big V-8 doesn't just move this car it catapults it in a way my son's 2017 Camaro with it's trick 3.6-liter V-6 and eight-speed automatic  doesn't. For the record this car has one-hundred and three more horsepower and a whopping one-hundred eight more foot-pounds of torque than the well-worn 3.8-liter V-6 does in my "Dale" so the difference in power, at least at first, that I felt to my backside may have been exaggerated since my car feels woe-fully under-gunned in comparison. For certain, learning not to launch the car like a fighter jet from stop-lights would be part of the fun of owning this. 

Through it all though, my take-a-ways with this car the other night were eerily similar to what I experienced years ago when I test drove one when these first came out - it's just ok. If that. Yes, it's fast but there has to be more to a "sporty" car than just being fast and\or good looking. It has to be rewarding to drive and the 2006-2007 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS is disappointing in ways that my car, as rusted and decrepit as it may be, makes me happy. My car continues to cajole and comfort me with  just enough edge to make it fun-to-drive. It's crudely satisfying in ways that this car attempts to be refined in; this overpowered SS anesthetizes rather than excites. Despite new struts and other front suspension hardware the dealership put into this car that they said would preclude any negotiation of the asking price, it's numb and loose - not a good combination for a car with "SS" badges all over it. This car may be fast as hell but who cares since it's not fun to drive. Yes, my car is a really old shoe but it's my old shoe and I love it for how it rides and handles more so than for the fact it's a sporty coupe. That, friends, is saying a lot. 

It's interesting how different this car is behind-the-wheel compared to Pontiac Grand Prix GXP's I've driven and loved that it shares so much DNA with. Whereas the GXP is an all-out blast to drive and feels like it encourages you to do things you normally wouldn't do, the Monte is soft and disconnected from the road. It wallows and swallows up bumps and rutted Ohio roads like a '70's Buick - who wants that? The Grand Prix is aggressive and responds like a go-cart - fun! It comes up short in the "gotta-have-it" department because it's a sedan; after all, I have my principles. From what I understand the Grand Prix GXP is fitted with Bilstein shocks the lower it and it has off-set, larger front tires than the rears but there's got to be more to it than that. And if there isn't, I'd be hard pressed to spend ten-grand on this car and immediately drop another two-thousand if not more updating the suspension and tires. The wife would kill me. 

Gas mileage would be a bit of a concern too. Even with a Grand Prix GXP.  I have a two-hundred mile a day commute (when I'm  actually in the office) so I really need something even more efficient than my Dale that gets a consistent twenty-five miles per gallon. Our Tahoe gets as little as twelve to thirteen miles per gallon around town and maybe cracks nineteen on long trips. The info center on this car said "21.1 AVG MPG" but you know those things are always calculated generously. Gas mileage propped up perhaps because the engine in these cars have "Displacement on Demand" that shuts off four-cylinders under light use to help save gas. I hate the feature because all cars I've driven with it stumble when the cylinders shut-off and on; my son's Camaro stumbles like crazy going between three and six cylinders and it's awful. This car didn't stumble so that tells me someone shut the damn "DOD" off. That makes driving it smoother although I'm sure gas mileage suffers. How much? I'll never know. 

In the end, I passed on this not because of the malaise-like seat of the pants handling but because of northeast Ohio's gift to cars and trucks - rust. Although squeaky clean compared to my Dale, I needed this car to be absolutely, 110% clean to really take it seriously and these tell-all rust bubbles reveal everything I need to know. That it appears someone had the gall to touch them up is telling to me too. Stay. Away. Just as well. 

I knew I made the right decision as I drove home in my rusting away old Dale Earnhardt. I feel many a road imperfection in the wheel and the the pot and chuck holes jar my kidneys just enough to keep me engaged with what's going on and make everything fun. The big-ole 3.8-liter V-6 may not sound as delicious as a V-8 but it pulls with all it's heart and I use every pony and foot-pound it has every chance I get. The big V-8 is excessive. Fun but it's too much; who needs that much power especially with as little tactile control of a car with so soft a suspension as it has. Besides, as they say, it's more fun to drive a slow-car fast.