The Z Club and the Classic Z Register....

[candy red]

Mainly stateside you forget to mention

If the 280Z is treated as a distant cousin, the ZX's have a very long journey ahead before they are considered part of the big happy family

I was told the 280zx owners were like the poor cousin when looking to join a club to show my car after finishing my restoration not bye any member on here still no friends their loss

 

[Mr Tenno]

I feel for 280zx owners. Nobody wants to hangout with them

Hey I like @Huw!

There are others too right?

 

[status]

There are people that don’t class the 280zx and the 300zx as a classic hence you don’t see them on a classic register stand
I’ve had a couple of 280 ZX s and love em especially the Targa but I don’t class it as a classic car but each to their own,The last donnington meet I think there was only two 280 ZX s most of the others were 240Z s and a few 260s,bit of snobbery perhaps on both sides of the fence

 

[toopy]

I would like to think it's not snobbery, and that many owners simply prefer the smoother lines of the early cars, the 280zx is a little more angular after all.

Look at the disdain for the 2+2 over the years, now it seems you can't move for imported Fairladys

Personally I'd like to see more 280zx in attendance at shows/meets and Z31 which I've only ever seen twice in the flesh to date.

Not so keen on the Z32 or later cars, and i wouldn't want to see rows of them on Zclub show stands, they have their own respective clubs for that, but that doesn't mean i would actively ignore owners of these cars at club meets if they did turn up, quite the opposite.

And as owners age and prices of early cars increase, pushing many more potential enthusiast owners out of the market, we are only going to see an increase of later cars and probably gradually less 240z as 'investors' keep them in heated garages instead. There won't be much of a Z Register then I'd wager, if snobbery is the underlying trend!

 

[richiep]

I don’t think it’s snobbery about the 280ZX - I think you see limited numbers because there simply aren’t many left, and certainly not that many that people actively want to show off. ZXs as beautiful as Huw’s, ChrisVega’s, and CandyRed’s are relatively few and far between. It’s true that they were - and to a degree still are - relatively unloved compared to the S30s, and a great many were simply left to rot. That’s where all the L28s now living in U.K. 240s and 260s came from after all! They are harder to restore, lacking the panel supplies of the S30s, and restored value is not high enough to justify restoration cost if having it done professionally - unless you have sentimental reasons driving it, value be damned.

Personally, I love the 2-seat 280ZX (sorry Derrick! ) and think they deserve more collective love!

 

[status]

Some nice zx s about,ive had every zx except the twin turbo,my fav is the 280zx targa as I sed I had two of em,
Investors,not sure about that probably a very few that bought Zeds and there is always going to be people that don’t care about the 280zx which I think if they didn’t have their heads stuck up you know where and get to drive a few they might even like em,that’s wot I call snobbery

 

[Ped]

I don’t think it’s snobbery about the 280ZX - I think you see limited numbers because there simply aren’t many left, and certainly not that many that people actively want to show off. ZXs as beautiful as Huw’s, ChrisVega’s, and CandyRed’s are relatively few and far between. It’s true that they were - and to a degree still are - relatively unloved compared to the S30s, and a great many were simply left to rot. That’s where all the L28s now living in U.K. 240s and 260s came from after all! They are harder to restore, lacking the panel supplies of the S30s, and restored value is not high enough to justify restoration cost if having it done professionally - unless you have sentimental reasons driving it, value be damned.

Personally, I love the 2-seat 280ZX (sorry Derrick! ) and think they deserve more collective love!

Totally agree with the lack of panel availability. The lack of surviving cars means that prices have been rising in the last few years, so hopefully it is becoming more viable to restore them. Just from a quick look at How Many Left there are about 10 times as many 240/260z than 280zx! I quite like the fact that a lot of people have never seen a 280zx before. Each to their own.

 

[Rob Gaskin]

Even in the 90s 280ZXs were unloved. I remember collecting a Ford Anglia bootlid from a guy and he had a ZX for sale. His words were "you don't want one of these do you, I can't sell it?" It was only something like £400 and it looked ok. So it's not the snobbery issue because Joe Public didn't want them. I much prefer the 2 seater. I think some of the interiors and the auto didn't help their image. I admire the really smart ones now because of their rarity and in our Club the owner workmanship. I'm sure they are a great tourer.

 

[Albrecht]

All this "280ZX this" and "280ZX that" is a legacy of the same old historical misapprehensions.

Just like the S30-series was a FAMILY of variant models from concept and natural evolution, so was the S130-series.

And just as '240Z' doesn't mean one specific model, '280ZX' too is a non-specific term. A '280Z' could be either S30-series or S130-series...

The 'S30' term (although still largely misunderstood) seems to have caught on a little in recent years, but '280ZX' and/or 'ZX' still seems - misleadingly - to be used as the default term for the S130-series models.

It makes some sense for Z-related clubs to - should they wish - focus on a particular series. Catering for both the earliest S30-series cars and the latest Z34-series cars, plus everything in between, seems a bit of a stretch.

 

[Rob Gaskin]

............It makes some sense for Z-related clubs to - should they wish - focus on a particular series. Catering for both the earliest S30-series cars and the latest Z34-series cars, plus everything in between, seems a bit of a stretch.

Ok but some people like the 'Club' aspect of ownership and the interface with Club members that has built up over the years. Also I like 'Nissan' cars so have bought a 350Z and a 370Z (Z33/Z34) but I don't 'fit in' to Clubs for those cars.

 

[Albrecht]

Ok but some people like the 'Club' aspect of ownership and the interface with Club members that has built up over the years. Also I like 'Nissan' cars so have bought a 350Z and a 370Z (Z33/Z34) but I don't 'fit in' to Clubs for those cars.

I can understand that, but a club that caters for cars of many generational evolutions over a 50+ year period will - naturally - tend to splinter/divide into sub-sections which will concentrate on the peculiarities of each series.

In my opinion (and I'm not saying it should be law...!) the function of a marque & model-specific car club would include the curation of the cars, their history, data sharing (maintenance know-how, parts interchange, history of individual cars, press liason) and - ideally - lobbying the manufacturer (replacement parts support!) and commission of reproduction parts where required.

Sometimes - as we have seen - the financial and business side of all that starts to bite back. It's a very difficult balance.

 

[Mr Tenno]

I can understand that, but a club that caters for cars of many generational evolutions over a 50+ year period will - naturally - tend to splinter/divide into sub-sections which will concentrate on the peculiarities of each series.

In my opinion (and I'm not saying it should be law...!) the function of a marque & model-specific car club would include the curation of the cars, their history, data sharing (maintenance know-how, parts interchange, history of individual cars, press liason) and - ideally - lobbying the manufacturer (replacement parts support!) and commission of reproduction parts where required.

Sometimes - as we have seen - the financial and business side of all that starts to bite back. It's a very difficult balance.

Is now a good time to bring back up that wiki we wanted your help with?

 

[Albrecht]

Is now a good time to bring back up that wiki we wanted your help with?

You can bring it up...

I'm willing to help, of course.