At Motoring J Style earlier this year we were lucky enough to be pulled aside by a writer (Telly Sahara) and photographer (Akio Hirano) for Vintage Auto magazine published by Lightning.  They were very interested in shooting both the ZCG RB 240z and 510.  We were happy to oblige and a meeting time for the next day was set!

When we met the next morning they began to take shots of the entire shop along with some of the other vintage cars that we store for ourselves and customers.  We then set out on a mission to find a few suitable locations to shoot the two “Go Green” Datsuns.  They wanted to keep to the green theme and luckily I knew where we could find the most well manicured grass this side of a Montecito golf course.  The only thing stopping us from shooting there were three large concrete pylons made to prevent this exact thing.  Lucky for us, Datsuns are extremely skinny vehicles!  Picture SUCCESS!

Next we went to a nearby condominium complex that has a nice round-about.  We were able to jam up traffic for the next few hours while we positioned the cars in every position possible.  The photos that came out of this set look great and were well worth the effort.

After returning to the shop the photographer asked Rob if he could drive the 510.  Wow, he has more courage than I do.  Rob never lets anyone drive his 510 (usually only shop employees), but he felt in his huge Datsun heart that it was the right thing to do.  And it turns out that he owns a high horsepower N/A SR20 510 in Japan that he uses for drifting.  They came back about twenty minutes later with huge smiles on their faces.

Good times were had by all on this day, and it was well worth the trip from Japan.

Sorry but I couldn’t find any links for an offfical site for Vintage Auto.  Your best bet to find this issue is to go to your local Japanese book store.  Happy hunting.

Everyone has been patiently waiting so here is your payoff!  These photos are here for our viewing pleasure from our good friends at PhotoShootMyCar.com (please visit their site on the right.)  They had two photographers at our 370z event and all of the pictures are top notch.  Thanks again friends.

I’m going to spread all of the photos over a couple of posts to keep everyone coming back for more.  As always, click on the photos to see it larger and there are tons more photos after the “jump.”

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The drive from Sacramento to Las Vegas with the 370z was like winning the lottery.  I’m not kidding.  Getting the opportunity to drive these cars on an extended trip like this is a once in a life time experience (well hopefully not.)

I was able to drive the final leg all the way from Bakersfield to Las Vegas.  I have never been more impressed with a STOCK car in my entire life.  This car is amazing!  The improvements over the out-going model are almost too vast to describe here, but I’ll give it my best.

Exterior styling: While quite a few people feel that the new car has some strange styling ques the design really grows on you one you spend some time on it.  I spent four days with the car doing everything from detailing them to driving them through the desert with ZCG’s finest creations and I have fallen in love with the way it looks.  It is definitely a Z.

Interior: Improvements in this department are vast.  All of the materials are top notch quality and the arrangement of the buttons and switches has been improved over the 350z.  I wasn’t too big of a fan of the seats in the standard model (I drove the blue 370z the 300 miles from Bakersfield to Las Vegas) but the other people on the drive had no complaints.  The Premium Edition interior was also very impressive with it’s power leather seats and full navigation system.  Very nice indeed.

Engine: The new VQ is the best normally aspirated V6 Nissan has ever produced, hands down.  There is torque everywhere with this thing!!  With the rev limit still up at 7,500 rpm so there is plenty of room to play around the rpm range while changing gears as little as possible if you desire.  Yes please…

Drivetrain: This is my favorite part of the entire package.  They have modified the electronics in the car to recognize what gear you are in at any time.  This allows the ecu to be able to rev match you automatically no matter what gear you select, and it works on up shifts too!  NO MORE MISSED THROTTLE BLIPS, EVER.  The only way to miss a shift now is if you don’t engage the shifter all the way.
In other words if you are at 60mph and you want to go from 5th to 4th gear you just need to disengage the clutch and start to move the shifter  and the engine will adjust it’s RPM to match the selected gear and it will hold it there as long as you have your foot on the clutch.  You can even keep the clutch in while shifting from gear to gear and the engine RPM will dance around the tach like Circ de Soleil.  Wicked.

If you have any specific questions about the car feel free to leave a comment of shoot us an email and I will add whatever information I can get my hands on.  Now without further delay here are some more pictures from our adventures on the Follow The Nissan Z tour to Las Vegas and Back.

There are more photos after clicking the read more link and always click on the pictures for larger.

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By now everyone knows that Z Car Garage just hosted an awesome event on the Follow The Nissan Z tour and we took the chance to try out a new wheel option.  The obvious choice are the R35 GT-R wheels that we have off our shop GT-R.  They fit perfectly which could make this the hot ticket when the 370z hits market.  Check it out

This car was brought to our shop by our friends at GO370Z.com and Nissan Sport magazine.  Check out their sites.

Please give me a few moments today to go through all the photos from the road trip with the 370z.   The pictures are amazing.  Check back in a few
Forbes
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