This is a great story of a classic sports car that was well-loved from one generation to the next. Of all the vintage sports models we cover, the original Nissan / Datsun Z-car seems to be the one that is most often loved by multiple caretakers. While plenty of them fall down the slippery slope of bad modifications and deferred maintenance, plenty of others are looked after like this 1972 Datsun 240Z listed here on eBay has been. It belonged to the grandfather for many since new before being passed down to the granddaughter, who parked it in 1994.
Too often we see cars get donated or junked by the grandchildren who had no interest in preserving the family’s connection to it; clearly, this grandfather wanted his descendents to know the joy of owning a vintage coupe like this Z car. As the listing tells it, grandpa bought the car as a retirement present to himself and drove it often. It incurred one respray in that time in its original colors before being handed off to his granddaughter. Can you image how exciting that must have been to receive a car like this that belonged to someone you loved? The best part is the Z hadn’t fallen into disrepair – it was still in excellent condition, although it did feature the optional automatic transmission.
However, many of these early (and even the later) Zs had automatics, owing to its split personality as both a grand tourer and a true sports model. The inline-six powerplant was punchy enough that the slushbox must not have been terribly disappointing on the test drive, and the Z car was known for having decent torque despite being from an era of Japanese models when down-low grunt wasn’t a priority. The engine bay is clean and the seller notes it has been properly reconditioned after its many years in the garage, including “… new tires, brakes, battery, carbs cleaned, fuel tank flushed, etc.”
I love these old-school license plate frames; when you could still find them in the junkyard, I always grabbed the more entertaining ones. The seller notes this Z has been a Washington State car all of its life, which is a fairly solid guarantee that it’ll be as rust-free as promised underneath. Though this isn’t a desirable Series 1 car, that matters less and less as the next iteration models continue to climb in value. The Buy-It-Now of $25,000 is reasonable and the current bid of $19,000 shows it’s likely to reach that final number with ease. Great colors and great history – an ideal combination for a collector car like this.
Automatic & a sunroof – I’ll pass.
Beautiful car. I would budget for a manual swap. That inline 6 loves to sing when matched with a stick. I can only imagine that the old school auto would dull the action
“The seller notes this Z has been a Washington State car all of its life, which is a fairly solid guarantee that it’ll be as rust-free as promised underneath.”
From my observations depending on where you live in Washington State it isn’t a rust-free area or a moss-free area.
I bought the wife a used 1972 240Z with an automatic and A/C for her convenience. I assumed that the automatic would be disappointing to me, but I was wrong. On the road it seemed like the automatic had very long legs despite being a three speed auto. A very nice car that really never presented any real problems during our ownership. Unfortunately rust became a huge problem so I eventually let it go. Should have let the wife go with it as she eventually presented big problems as well.
I find it odd that few drivers stopped driving COOL cars in bad weather back then as SOON as rust made its 1ST appearance. That goes double for even faster to rust ’70-’73 T/As & Z28s. & drive a cheap junker on bad weather days instead – there is a multiple car insurance discount.
I turned 26 in 1972, and just about everybody I knew wanted one. If my observations at the time are anything to judge by, about 80% sold back then were this color.