The Z Life Chooses You: 1976 Datsun 280Z // CARISMA

[Music] I never went to a car me was like man I hope one day I can afford the fancy dollar item and then once I can afford it I'll hit the mark and that's it it's like no like I watched that guy turn that piece of chassis into something amazing with his own hands I think that's cool I think that's really exciting and I want to be like [Music] that I think in owning an old car the way you build it and the way that you fashion it after a particular period it needs to have respect for tradition these cars are older than half of us that own them they're going to exist longer than we will I don't think that the car necessarily is supposed to be some sort of representation of you so much as it's about existing in permanence Beyond [Music] you my dad he grew up building hot rods every month we would get carcraft and Hot Rod Magazine to the house I get home from school before he' even get home and get a chance to take his own magazines out of the mail I'd be thumbing through them and checking out all these hot rods that I adored as a kid that and Matchbox cars everything you could imagine it was just like old cars when I was a kid by the time I was in kindergarten I knew the name of like every car on the road drawing emblems in my notebooks it was off and running from a very early age as I got older I started to gravitate towards punk rock and skateboarding the car stuff was always in my brain I always loved cars but to all my friends I was like considered like Guido like materialistic superficial or whatever and I can understand that from the way that you would most commonly see it I was in the hot rods and building cars and drag racing all that kind of but what people considered to be car cultur was like BMWs and fancy so I had a hard time kind of rectifying that interest with all these sort of counterculture ideas I think ultimately I came around on realizing that like the way that I wanted to approach cars and what I enjoyed about car culture As I understood it was kind of the same way that I appreciate all the DIY stuff I saw in punk rock and you know certain art movements that I was into if you were going to be involved in it and you were going to care about doing the car thing do it yourself make it your own employ your skills share it with other people it should exist outside of you it shouldn't be a matter of status or how much money you're making or a flex on other people shouldn't be about your ego it should be about contributing to a broader culture that other people can Garner something from I found that the people that were doing interesting things with their cars were mostly the guys doing it themselves in their driveway or behind their buddy's house it felt very organic to the passion that was coming out of those spaces the more I got involved in it the more I respected and sort of looked up to that [Music] energy [Music] I've had the Z now for about 12 years I was like 25 at the time I just sold my O2 WRX that was like my first real project car I felt like I wanted something with a little more curb appeal a little more refinement something that spoke to where I was in life I was weirdly torn between a 69 Nova or an FD RX7 my buddy suggested getting a z the s30 was like this like perfect combination of the Nova and FD it kind of made the most sense so I got on craigslist found this the guy that had it brought it up from Texas and just didn't have the gumption to finish it it was perfectly stock when I got it bug got me it just started doing everything carbs welding suspension components head workor exhaust flares everything at this point I've definitely I know every inch of that car I've touched every part on it it's my proudest project I mean this car has taught me so much about mechanics and Fabrication and I've developed the skill set in owning this car that I'm super proud of it's like a rolling portfolio certain communities that I was always involved in and gaining inspiration from you know a lot of them had like very ingrained honor cultures in them respecting your elders and getting put on by people that are older than you and learning from the generation before you and just kind of carrying the torch as it were these things things have a rich history of being really popular in Japanese Street tuning in the 70s and ' 80s here they have Rich history as far as like IMS racing and all that goes there's a lot to pay homage to in the way that you're approaching these vehicles you should have an idea of where the car comes from what it means to the time period that it was built and then how you owning it now is going to carry that torch into the future you know like yeah I built the car but like I think that it should be sort of a a Hallmark of this Heyday of Japanese tuning enter this community and this culture with an understanding of your position in it and if you're going to contribute you got to have some education in in that it's just a matter of respect you know somebody built this car before I I rebuilt it you know what I mean like that [Music] matters back when I was getting into these you would have to really look for the information old magazines there's a bunch of books you can buy about how to rebuild these you got to do the hard labor in getting the information they got information from people on forums these guys are all like 50 something 60 something aging out of it I think by virtue of that social media getting a little more popular the cars themselves have gotten more popular and z's are definitely desirable now I think that's great they're an awesome car I love this car and then I found guys younger than me buying them they don't have anywhere to take them you know and if they want work done on it or they need advice or they want me to rebuild their whole car form him I think I'm the only guy around that can do that for him and I'm happy to be that guy I mean that's that's what I'm here for and that's what I always wanted to do do [Music] so over the years maintaining a car Hobby in the city was always sort of a means justify the ends I quite literally have worked 7 days a week my entire adult life to afford a garage and afford tools and parts and everything I need to be able to do this and I live in the city I'm going to work in the city I'm not ready to run away necessarily it's expensive It's a Grind you make it work and I think in making it work a lot of things come out of that too when it's not coming to you too easy you you figure out how to get done a little better just builds the strength of character the Ingenuity that comes out of that or making it work is a mark of success I [Music] think so many cultures have been born out of this city and there's a lot of just latent energy in the city around you it's inspiring in its own way and it's going away I can look back at photographs that my dad will show me or hear stories about back in the day when there were so many speed shops and queens and Guys from Brooklyn had their little race Crews and guys from you know W would come in and Staten Island guys would building cars out there the city had a lot of people doing things in it and a lot of that stuff's gone now garages get rezoned they don't become garages ever again I think to be one of the last Main Stays or or or be able to hold the space at least while I can means a lot to me just for the sake of the tradition of this and what I've seen it come from and the energy that I think is really important and and ingrained in that I feel like in this day and age something that does have the trappings of ego and vanity car culture will always have that element of guys that just throw the checkbook at it and posture you got to Snuff that out that's not it that's not making anybody better that's not helping anybody grow that's very shortsighted ego building a community and talking to people and knowing your and and sharing that selflessly that's how this is going to keep going otherwise this is all going to turn to dust everybody's ego is going to die with them and they're not going to leave anything behind they didn't teach anybody anything they didn't help anybody with anything they didn't build anything on their own and they came and went and all they did was [Music] take you told 16-year-old me that I was going to have any of thisit going on that would have been like the dream to me I'm here to build restore and preserve old school Japanese Street tun it's it's it's the to me I know I love it it excites me every day I know there's so much more I want out of it that I'm still chasing I'm really excited to just get better and better and better at this through a lifetime of effort I found purpose in this I'm going to do everything I can to keep that going and so far as that I'm involved and have access to these things and we're allowed to drive them you're not going to stop [Music] me

Channel: The Drive

Views: 61,504

Keywords: nissan z, datsun, 1970s cars, car enthusiasts, profile, brooklyn

Id: GF0DOesovoI

Length: 9min 7sec (547 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 01 2024