When most people think of classic sport cars, they rarely think of Japanese cars first. But there is one Japanese sports car that embodies everything that a classic sports car should be. It has great styling, fantastic handling, and overall impressive performance. That one car is the Datsun 240Z and when it hit our shores, it completely changed the image of what a Japanese car could be. There were a lot of these cars that made it our way, but few have survived. Many have either rotted away or been highly modified. Well we found this 1972 240Z here on eBay and not only is it intact, but completely original. The seller is asking $35,000 for this museum quality car, which seems high, but given that the car is rust free and wearing its original paint it might be worth it.
This car is in immaculate condition, with almost no signs of wear. The interior looks as good as it did the day it left the factory. The seller claims the car only has 26,000 original miles on it, and just by the looks of the interior we think they’re probably correct. The first thing we noticed was that the dash cap looks great and doesn’t have a single crack in it. We also noticed that the seats are still like new, as are the carpets. The originality continues from the interior out to the exterior, were the car’s original orange paint is still bright and in great shape.
One of the features that made the 240Z such a fantastic car was its 2.4L straight six. It wasn’t the most powerful engine, only producing 150 hp and 146 lbs. of torque, but it was reliable even at the limits. This car’s original engine has been well maintained throughout its life and has recently been serviced. These engines have a lot of potential, but given the quality of this car we would leave it as it is.
This car looks to be in impressive condition and restoring another 240Z to this condition would cost a small fortune. So while the asking price seems steep, we think it’s pretty close to market value. The real question is will the seller be able to find a buyer? Demand for these cars is all over the place right now, but we wish the seller luck finding the right buyer.
But an Automatic?
My second car was a ’78 datsun 280, the last of the good body style IMO. It was an automatic. It, and this car above, are the only two Ive ever run across…though Im sure it isnt ‘that’ rare. I’d love to own one again some day, but 35K? Yikes.
no way. even if it is bone stock, even if it were a 5 speed–it’s not worth that much. LOVE that car. LOVE the color. hate the auto tranny, but whatever. to each his own.
I’m an old guy and I remember being torn between a Porsche 914, a 240Z and a Fiat Spider. I wanted an open car and didn’t want to deal with the unreliability of the Fiat so I went with the 914. Almost immediately I wished I had gone with the Datsun. About twice the power and much better built.
Museum condition? You and the seller must have been drinking from the same 55 gallon drum of Kool Aid. Aside from his terrible English, he offers these descriptions of this “best-world-class” time capsule: “almost no rock chips; pretty much everything works; nothing is dripping at this moment;minor scratches; 99% of the minor dings and dents were removed…” This looks like a nice car, but would make much more sense without the absurd hype. And let’s not begin to talk about the AT.
Nice ride but $35k? Crack pipe.
Hey kids, DON”T DO CRACK, it leads to vastly overpricing your car. Didn’t Nissan sell rebuilt ones 5-10 years ago for 30+k and had to call it quits because they weren’t selling. Or you could get a 72 convertible corvette and have 5-10k left for winter car/truck and a the vette will go UP in value if kept good condition.
I owned a 72 Zcar in the day.Bought it on a whim after having owned numerous vettes and muscle cars.It was a fun little car,but thats about it.After youve owned American V8’s,anything else is too weak! The good gas mileage was a nice change from a vette,I gave it that back then.
What made them sell was the competition, MG’s and TR6’s with much less horsepower and old technology. Even though those Brits had their rust problems too, as did the 914’s, nothing rusts like a 70’s jap. And I had a 72 510, a 73 Celica and a 79 Civic. All well designed but made out of recycled tinfoil with no rust proofing. I liked driving them but they cured me of Japanese cars.
I had a lot of ’70’s Datsuns back in the day….Had a 510, had a 521 (pick-up), and even had a ’72 240Z.The ’72 was the best performer of the early Z’s because it didn’t have the heavy bumpers of the later years, & there really wasn’t much sheetmetal weight to push around. So performance was above par for that time period. It wasn’t meant to compete w Corvettes, it was primarily competing w Opel GTs, Triumphs, MGs, etc.. It didn’t offer much in creature comforts but it had great styling, was great fun to drive, and even had a fairly decent cargo bay for carrying a couple of cases of Michelobs to the beach party!In the dry Calif weather these survived quite well, so this one is quite possibly very solid. But I have to agree that the automatic would certainly NOT be my choice! That’s gonna rob that 2.4 of a lot of its pep!!But at $35K?? Not gonna be parking this one in my garage at that price!!(But let’s say you are someone who feels like he or she missed the opportunity to buy one of these cars “back in the day”… Maybe now you have some “toy money” available and you want to correct some of the mistakes of your past by getting the car that you always wanted? Then maybe $35K is a small price to pay for a time machine that will transport you back to your youth during weekend drives… But I’d definitely put a manual trans in it!!)
375hp 327… that was a fun fast car and was made for that motor! :)