Eric Richmond
1991 Nissan 300 ZX 2+2
1991 Z32
"Barn Find"
Don's Story (second owner):
In August 2010, I had driven my Black Pearl 280Z past a local pet store
and stopped to pick up a bag of food for the rat terriers. On leaving,
a guy came out of the groomers with a cute little Maltese terrier that
had just been to the beauty spa. Right down to the little red ribbon that
kept the hair out of its eyes. He saw the Z and approached me.
"Is that a Z?" he asked.
"Yes it is," I replied.
"Do you know anything about Zs?"
"Well, I've owned that one since 1978, and I probably know Everything
there is to know about that one."
"I have a Z, and I'd like someone to look at it."
"What year?"
"It's a 1991." OK -- it's a Z32 I thought to myself.
"Is it a two-seater or four?"
"It's a four seater." OK - it's a 2+2. And it's not a twin turbo.
Fair enough -- I'm not that fond of turbos.
"Manual or automatic?"
"Automatic." OK -- it's probably not been driven hard. A good
sign.
"How many miles?" This was critical -- high-mileage Z32s can
be expensive to put right, and we were talking twenty years here.
"Nineteen thousand."
Whoa!! A twenty-year-old car with 19,000 Actual miles? Not damned likely!
So I figured it was probably 119,000 and the guy didn't know what he was
talking about, but I took his number and pretty much forgot about it for
six weeks.
One day I was planning on driving up through McMinnville, and I recalled
the car so I called the guy and asked if I could stop in. He happened
to be where the car was -- his in-laws place that the family was preparing
to sell -- and said he'd be pleased to see me. So we arranged a time and
I drove on up. He met me and opened the garage door.
And my jaw pretty much hit the driveway.
There it was, sitting there on four flat Original tires! It was covered
in dust, and the wax on it had changed color slightly to give the white
pearl metallic paint a sort of pinkish cast. He got the air compressor
and filled the tires -- all four held air. At which point, I started taking
pictures of the car as I found it.
The story he told was of a really nice man, Ralph Bunn of a well-connected
Republican family in Oregon politics, who had purchased this car for his
wife's birthday in 1991. She didn't drive it much - mostly she rode with
him. Over the years, she didn't put a lot of miles on it.
In 2002 she had a stroke, and couldn't drive any more. The car sat in
the garage unused. Over the years, the family urged her to sell it, but
she simply refused to do it. "Ralph bought me that car, and I don't
want to sell it!" was her response. She never did.
Phyllis died in 2010. Her personal license plate stayed on the car.
When I came across it, the car still had gasoline in it that was nearly
8 years old. The original tires were twenty years old -- still had tread,
but were no longer safe to drive on that sort of car.
The guy wanted to know what I thought it was worth. I told him that as
such things go, it wasn't on the high end of the collectible or performance
car spectrum. It wasn't a two-seater, it wasn't a turbo, it was an automatic,
but it was in really nice condition. At the time, the market for such
cars was at a low point as well -- the whole collector car market had
taken a hit in 2008 with the collapse of the economy. So that tended to
pull the overall market value down.
In addition to which, the 8-year-old gas would require a complete teardown
of the fuel system - from the gas tank to the fuel injectors, all the
lines and pumps and everything else. The serpentine belt had to be changed,
it needed a full set of new tires -- and those couldn't be cheapies. There
was still a sort of coating in the engine compartment (it shows in the
photos) that the original dealer should have cleaned off, but was still
there. In short, it would take several thousand dollars just to put the
car right and make it safe and dependable to drive once again.
I wrote the guy a check, rented a trailer and winched the Z32 onto it,
then pulled it back to Salem. I took it to a friend's shop, where we commenced
to tearing the fuel system entirely out and cleaning it, replacing the
serpentine belt completely, getting the new tires and just doing pretty
much everything that was required. I then stripped the old wax from it,
clay-barred the finish and put a good coat of the best wax I could buy.
On presenting it to my wife, I handed her the keys and the title, reminded
her that I'd told her twenty years earlier that I'd find one and give
it to her, and said "A promise is a promise." She was astonished.
I had figured she'd drive it regularly. It wasn't, after all, all that
notable as a car. Pretty normal as such things go, but the exceptionally
pristine original condition it was in made it something pretty special.
Of a warm day, one could still pick up a whiff of the New Car Smell it
originally came with.
I was mildly surprised that she seldom drove it. "It's too nice,
and I'm afraid something will happen to it," she said more than once.
"Mostly I just like to look at it -- it's so beautiful."
So she kept driving her SAAB 900S (my wife is a car enthusiast of sorts,
and one of the great Car Guy Wives anywhere) and the Z32 stayed in the
garage.
In 2011, we drove it to the Oregon Coast Exotic Car Show at Salishan Resort.
On a whim, we entered it in the Japanese car class, where it was up against
an Acura NSX, several Mazda RX-7s and a Toyota Celica Supra. All were
really nice cars in their own right.
It won the class, and she was duly presented with a cast sterling silver
medallion -- which is the best car show trophy I have ever seen. But the
weather that day was terrible -- either a heavy mist or a light rain.
In the end, she entrants and the cars were fully soggy.
The award was nice, because my 280Z had won the same class the year earlier,
so we each had one of the medals. In both years, the guy with the NSX
took second. At the award ceremony, he approached Kathy and asked, in
a somewhat plaintive tone of voice, "Do you guys have a third car?"
We assured him we did not, and that we would not be entering either into
future shows at that venue. But that was the only car show the Z32 ever
entered, and it won it. No point in overdoing it.
The story after that is one of the car being carefully maintained but
not used that much. We did take a trip from Salem to Sacramento in it
to visit her brother. Of a nice weekend, we'd drive it out to the coast,
and on the occasional cruise with the local Datsun/Nissan car club. But
mostly it sat in the garage with a cover on it. When we bought the rural
place in wine country, it migrated to the shop, where it was stored under
cover. It was started at least monthly and allowed to run a bit even during
winter. We didn't drive it in the rain. But if the weather was dry, I
would take it out for a brief run just to ensure that everything was working
as it should.
Over time, it became clear that there was little point in continuing to
own and store it. These are cars that really should be driven by someone
who can enjoy both their beauty and general excellence. So we decided
to sell it, but were careful not to sell it to some teenager who would
paint flames on it, or someone who wanted to shoehorn a 350 SBC into it.
This is a Grand Touring car in the best sense of the term. In other iterations,
it's the first Japanese Supercar out there.
In the interim, I had found the One -- the very one -- car I had purchased
back in January 1968 the night before I went to Viet Nam the second time.
But that meant there had to be room made in the shop for it, and the 280Z
is Not going to be sold any time soon. So the Z32 had to go. I put it
on Hemmings and eBay, and then sat back as every scam artist in the world
tried to convince me that as a car it wasn't worth a lot. I simply knew
better. I was offered some real junk in trade - mostly mobile rust of
one sort of another. Had push come to shove, I'd have kept it rather than
make some of the deals I was being offered.
Eric's Story (third owner):
I'd been lusting after a 300ZX ever since they came out in 1990. I had
a chance to lease one in 1993 as a Company car but decided that for practicality,
I'd go with a Maxima. But I never forgot the Z and spend the next 22 years
looking for the right one.
In June of 2015 I found her. A 1991 300ZX 2+2 with t-tops and low miles.
I didn't want a turbo, and I had decided that my wife would appreciate
the practicality of the back seat and, with the exception of the automatic
transmission (bummer) this car was perfect. And the price was less that
what I'd budgeted for the car. So I emailed the owner, and after a great
number of emails back and forth, I sent him a deposit to hold the car
while I put together the financing. Since the car was in Salem, OR I also
had to plan the logistics of getting the car back to CT.
After a few days, I had the financing arranged. I sent Don a copy of the
check to prove I was real and made plans to fly out to Oregon to see the
car. The planned date was Tuesday July 7, 2015 and Don would pick me up
at the airport and take me to his farm in Salem to check out the car.
When we got to the farm, the first thing we did was go over the paperwork.
Don had every piece of paper, every service record, every manual and piece
of product literature that went with the car. He had the original window
sticker. He had the original Titanium key (never used). He even had the
key tag (and key) that the original Nissan Dealer had used to hang the
key on the inventory board. The guy was more than meticulous. After showing
me the car's records, we went out to look at the car.
The Z was sitting in the garage under a cover. When we rolled back the
cover, you could tell right away that this car was special. The Glacier
White Pearl paint job glowed and showed no signs of ever having been run
through a mechanical car wash. The interior was spotless. Not a wrinkle
or crack in the leather seats. In fact, there wasn't a crack anywhere.
The dashboard was perfect. The pull out cover over the luggage area was
perfect. The engine was so clean you could eat off of it. The car was
flawless and better than I could have hoped for. And that's when I decided
I would drive it home.
I'd decided before I left that if this was the car I'd been looking for
I'd be driving it home so I packed light - just stuff I knew I'd be comfortable
in for the 3,000 mile drive back to CT. I had my insurance card with me,
a Valentine One radar detector, a GPS and my Ray Bans. After a short test
drive, we exchanged paperwork, shook hands and 4 hours after landing in
Oregon, I was on my way back to CT.
Later that night, my cell phone rang.
Wife: What time does your flight get in?
Me: Well, I don't exactly have a flight.
Wife: What do you mean, "you don't exactly have a flight". Are
you coming home or aren't you?
Me: I should be home by Friday. I'm in Boise right now.
Wife: [click]
I hadn't exactly been upfront with the purchase of the car with my wife.
She'd talked me out of buying the one I really wanted about 5 years earlier
and although she didn't know I was still looking I was. I just didn't
mention it because I knew she'd try and talk me out of this one again
if she could.
Not the best idea. And I don't recommend it.
I'd done my homework and the trip across country was going to take about
3 ½ days if I didn't push it. The road I chose was the northern
one - Interstate 80 - from Portland to Connecticut as the weather along
that route tends to be less unpredictable in the summer. As I expected,
the Z performed flawlessly. With the cruise control set at 85 and only
occasional bursts to 95 in the Utah desert, I averaged about 25 mpg the
entire way back to NYC. I took the t-tops off when I could although the
heat was so bad through Nebraska and Iowa that I had to run the AC most
of the time. I didn't stop for any food that could be eaten in the car.
This was a vehicle that smelled new and I wasn't going to change that
by scarfing down a burger and fries in the front seat.
The day after I got home, wife in tow, I took the car to the summer picnic
that the local Z Car club was holding at Lime Rock Race Track in Northwest
Connecticut. If you've never been there, you should go. Owner Skip Barber
and his team have done a fabulous job of taking what was a small, picturesque
55 year-old road course and turned it into one of the best race tracks
in the country. My hope was that if the wife met some of the other Z guys
and their wives at a picnic, she might be less inclined to hate the car.
And me.
Another bad choice. I'm not 0-for-2 with this car.
The week after the picnic, I entered the car in the first of several events.
This one was the summer car show for the Connecticut Z Car Club and is
attended by other Z owners from New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and
Rhode Island. My Z took 2nd place in the "original, unmodified"
class.
That's me in the middle.
My friend Kevin is on my right holding the 1st place trophy. He said I
would have taken first place if I'd bothered to clean the engine bay after
the 3,100 mile cross country trip. Oops.
After that show, I was hooked. I've entered the car in 3 other shows since
then and come away with two trophies. One was a generic kind of trophy
- the one you get for just entering in the event. Which was fine. Truthfully,
I didn't expect to win anything at all.
Over this past Labor Day weekend, I entered the show in the Gathering
of the Marques event at Lime Rock Park. This was a big show with over
600 cars entered. And while I didn't come away with an overall trophy,
I did come away with the 1st place trophy for the entire Nissan Marque.
What made the award even more special is that the car was judged by legendary
Nissan factory racer driver and the co-owner of the Newman-Sharp (yes,
THAT Newman) racing team, Bob Sharp. Bob, who knows more about Nissans
than anyone around came up to me and said mine was one of the nicest Z's
he'd ever seen. Now THAT is a compliment.
Next up is the Alden Sherman Classic Car show in Weston, CT on Sept 25th.
It's a Concours event - my first - and I'm hoping to do well with it.