OT: Garage find..., an unmolested Datsun 240Z, 23 years idle in garage Options

[neo914-6]

I'd love to buy it but not sure what it's worth or what to offer. All original paint, optional AC, very little rust that I could see, only one shallow crease in the rear quarter panel, door dings, cracked dash, tears in drivers seat, rusted exhaust, some worn door seals. Everything else is just dirty. It was only outside the garage for the past year.

How do you start cars like this? My guess would be to replace the fluids, filters, plugs, plugs wires, rotor, gas, carb fuel lines, good battery, hand crank it to see if it turns, prime the carbs, and try to start her up...

[ConeDodger]

ZHome is the old Internet Z Car Club which was a mailing list with a website run by and still owned by Carl Beck in Florida.

The Z Store Project that I alluded to and Cooley also mentioned was a project intended to help with the introduction of the 350Z. Z cars had been off the market for a number of years and Nissan wanted to do an advertising gimick to rekindle Z car excitement as if that was really needed. The plan was to buy 100 very restorable first generation cars and take them down to the last bolt and rebuild them. Two restoration shops were used and instead of the planned 100 only about 20 ever made it to completion. Nissan had any parts that weren't available reissued sometimes if possible using the original vendor. The restoration shops used were Classic Datsun Motorsports and Pierre's Z in California. There may have been another East Coast shop but I do not recall the name. These cars were sold for about $25K with a warranty but due to Federal law they had the miles that were showing on their odometers. So, essentially you were buying a "new" car with 70K miles on it.
In terms of value, the most valuable Z car is the unmolested preservation with low miles. Next would be a well done original restoration. Third would be a Z Store project cars. Everything else falls in below that. Historic cars such as the one in the picture below are anybody's guess. Yes, that is Mr. Brock standing next to it.
One fortunate side-effect of the Z Store project is that many NLA parts were reissued and were actually cheaper than they had been. I bought a new hood and several other NLA parts just three years ago. Even new door panels are currently for sale.