1980 Datsun 280ZX Questions

MicVelo

All totally good advice above. ^^^

Let me add a couple of minor things.

As an investment car, not so great. The S130 lags behind ALL other generations of Z cars in appreciation rate. The highest ones are obviously the Series I and II S30, followed by Z32 turbos, and right behind that, the Z33 Nismo (jury's still out on the Z34N since its still made.) In and around those are the limited edition Z31 models - Anniversary, Shiro. Everything else hovers around "fair appreciation".

However, as a "project"/just-fun-to-have car, the ZX isn't bad. It's the emotional successor to the S30, after all. The only things weighing the S130 down is lack of power and in this case, the auto. trans. But consider this, the S30 (yes Gen 1, no typo) was "manual ready"; that is, the holes for mounting a clutch master and the pedal box have the component accommodation built into every S30 so swapping to a manual was a matter of securing the parts (master, slave, tranny, speedo cable and the hardest thing to find, the pedal box containing the manual's brake and clutch pedals) and R&R of the existing in favor of the manual gear.

But warning: Despite my having owned every gen Z BUT this one, I can't verify if what I said above carries to the ZX so check up on that if you plan to convert.

But in my totally unbiased estimation , any Z in the garage is better than NO Z anywhere on your property.

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Mic's: Z33, S30, SRL-311, SL55, Highlander-H / Gone: Z33 & Z34 Nismos, Z33-Rdstr, Z31 Shiro (R.I.P.), Z32, Q45, 5-S30s, D-Prod SRL311 and a bunch of other non-Nissans.