The Final Heaven Project S30Z

My passion for Zs started as a child after seeing my uncle's Datsun 260Z (which he has owned for almost 40 years) outside of my grandparents' house. Many evenings and summer days were spent seeing this car in the driveway and the silhouette had a lasting impact on me.

Fast forward and after many unsuccessful attempts to get him to sell me the car, I purchased a scrappy hunk of junk from Sacramento, California and imported it along with a friend and client's car.

Since 2012, I have imported and driven a number of Zs. From all original examples to highly modified SR20 and LS1 swapped Zs.

This was the first Z I imported to Japan with the sole intention to keep but many hurdles and obstacles would get in the way of getting this car finished. 

I started out renting a small garage space from a friend who allowed me to work on it there but unfortunately, the garage had a REALLY low roof (and by low, I mean 150cm  (>。<) and I could not comfortably work in there. I also was limited since I only had basic tools and not much space to store parts I removed from the car.

I went on some Japanese facebook groups to ask for help and nice fellow offered to rent me space in his garage and help with preparing the car for restoration. 

He had a great setup and owned a Hakosuka himself so over the course of about a year, him and I worked together to completely strip the Z of all its components, built a rotisserie and vinyl house to sandblast the undercoating and cabin, removed paint, and started to overhaul components for the car.

The car was taken to a body shop with all restoration panels prepared and I paid a deposit with the assurance that work would start in about 1.5 years after two other restorations in front of mine were completed. 

As you can probably guess, no work was done and the restorations in front of mine were not touched either. I highly suggest staying away from a body shop you cannot frequently visit. Lesson learned.

I wanted to use the car to display the KF Vintage JDM panels we carry, at the Nostalgic 2 Days show so I asked for my car to be returned to me. Nearly two years had elapsed and the body of the car had been exposed to the elements as well as all of the parts so they were not in great shape. I was less than pleased but I had two months to start cutting panels off and getting green parts on, so work began.

I am a complete amateur and did not take proper care or precautions to make sure the body of the car kept its shape when removing body panels but I was resolved to get green panels on the car so away we chopped.

I was able to get many of the panels loosely fitted to the car before the show and the car was a hit at the show! 

It was then time to start the restoration in earnest and the shell was transported to Sakamoto Sangyo. After him and his staff looking over the car, they concluded that it would be better to start with a different shell, as the amount of work required to get the Z straightened out would be extensive since so much metal was removed without reinforcement. 

To that end, the search for another Z began and I was fortunate enough to find a damaged shell that I could trade parts for. This shell was also taken to Sakamoto Sangyo and we were ready to get restoring, right?!

Not quite... The damage on the second Z required the use of a global jig to get the chassis square and perfectly within OEM specs. The rub? Sakamoto Sangyo did not have one (he does now though). Our solution was to transport the car to Mizukami Auto and have the car straightened to spec, then it will be transported back to Sakamoto Sangyo, mounted on a rotisserie, soda blasted, and then mounted to Sakamoto Sangyo's newly acquired Global jig for rust repair and restoration work.

That about catches us up to where we are as of now. It has been a long road and I am hopeful that genuine progress can be made on the car in the next few months. 

I have been a kyusha guy for so long but have yet to own and build my own Z here in Japan and that has made me feel like a fake at times. My hope is to get this car built and drive it as much as humanly possible. To events, shows, impromptu gatherings, to the grocery store etc. I have a lot of lost time to make up for and this Z will be a car that I enjoy!

It will likely go through many stages of development with the initial stages being mild and progressively getting more extreme. What I have in mind for the final stage is something that I have never seen in Japan so I am very excited to get going. 

Thanks for following along with the project and your continued support through purchases made on Final Heaven's web shop is greatly appreciated!

Let's enjoy kyusha life and keep these amazing cars alive for generations to come!