Our newest exhibit features a pairing of the race and street models of Nissan Z Cars. We’ve done a Z exhibit before, and we’ve shown the race cars before, but we’ve never paired them so an observer can look at what was done to the car to make it race-worthy. We hope that, displayed this way, you can see both the similarities and the differences in what is done to turn a sporty passenger car into a series-dominating racer.

Represented here are but three pairings – an original body style 1970 240Z; a later 1984 300ZX, and an even later still 1996 300ZX. Hopefully you can see the evolution in the bodies – certainly the family resemblance is strong from 1970-1984, but there are styling cues carried through to the 1996 model as well. Two of the race cars are only display bodies – they look like race cars on the exterior, but under the skin have simple frames and no drivetrains. The Bonneville car, however, is the real deal. With its engine modified to produce 300 horsepower, it ran an average of over 166 miles per hour, a class record that stood until 1985!

There 6 different cars featured in this exhibit include:

• 1970 Datsun 240Z (HLS30 Chassis)
• 1970 Datsun 240Z Bonneville Salt Flats Car

• 1984 Nissan 300ZX (Z31 Chassis)
• 1985 Nissan 300ZX Turbo

• 1996 Nissan 300ZX Turbo (Z32 Chassis)
  
• 1990 Nissan 300ZX Turbo

Want to learn more about how and why this exhibit came together?  Museum Manager David Yando sums it up nicely in this blog post!

This exhibit will be on display until January 9, 2012.

Share