This '71 Datsun 240Z has a custom home-made fiberglass body that replaces all exterior sheet metal except for the roof and "B" pillar. Additional photos of the body and mechanical work done on this car can be found at BlueOvalZ Photo Documentation .

The photos below show the car pretty much as it sits today. Originally it was designed and driven as a road racing vehicle. After a short racing career,and the lack of funds, it was retired to a garage for 9 years, at which point it was decided to insure it, tag it, and drive it on the street.

 All panels were Dzeus fastened in place, but this was changed to a "bolt-on" arrangement when the car was put on the street. The rear panels are pop-riveted into place. The front flares are 4" wider (per side) and the rears are 4.5" wider per side. This allows 315/35ZR17 tires on 11" wide wheels with a 5" backspacing using coil-overs (the race set-up was 12.5" wide tire in back, and 10.5" wide tires in front on 16" wheels.

The below shots are of its humble beginnings. Fiberglass over foam and drawing lines for future vents and scoops. Who knew it would turn out like it did!

After some finish sanding and primer, the cage went in. I chose to leave the cage intact as the this car was converted to street use. Yeah, I've still got to crawl into the car through the windows, but it adds a lot of stiffness and SAFETY to the car.

These were some awesome seats in that there was no movement under high lateral loads. Unfortunately, they were not as comfortable as the new Corbeau seats, or I would have kept them in the car. If I ever race again, these old seats are going back in.

These are some shots of the racing version before converting it to stree use. It was basically the same as the current street car with the exception of the rear end treatment, no headlights, and lacking a splitter

On the way to converting it to a street car, one of the tasks was creating grills for the various intake scoops on the car. A few Grand Am grills were cut up and used to cover all race brake cooling scoops and to dress up the fender vent behind the front wheels

I wanted to hide the unsightly fuel cell, battery, and exhaust system that was seen hanging from the rear valance panel. I fabricated exhaust tip rings and fabricated a fiberglass undertray to cover the rear view of the fuel cell, battery, and exhaust system. Then I visually broke up the large space with a vent to allow hot exaust heat out from under the car using an Acura front grill, turned upside-down and separated from its chrome trimings. The bare grill was then inserted into custom fiberglass frame, which was then inserted into a hole in the rear valance panel.

The next set of photos shows the undertray being built and the fabricated (1/8" sheet) aluminum exhaust tip rings in place. Notice the bumper bracket covers on both sides of the valance panel (left photo). These bracket covers, and the bracket mounts under them, were removed and replaced with a hole for the exhaust tips and rings.

While I was completely redesigning the tal sectiion, I fabricated a fiberglass tail light panel using Ford truck tail lights (they were modified somewhat to not be so "obvious. The left photo shows all the parts used for the tail lights and the fiberglass tail light panel itself. The right photo is when it is all assembled. The fiberglass panels, Ford lights, and LeSabre prismatic lenses make up the assembly.

Without, and with, the spoiler. Removing the spoiler widens and lowers the "look" substantially,

How do you get perfectly straight strips on a car with lots of awkward compound curves at the stripe line? Use a laser leveler to mark out the straight line. Also, a laser pointer attached to the wheel hub allows one to make a perfect arc onto the bodywork to create the perfect wheel opening:

Headlights had to be added to put the car on the street. I initially used small single headlights, which had a "shark" like appearance. Even though they looked good, I wanted to regain some of the original "Z" look to the front end. To do this I had to remove the small lights and build fiberglass tunnels and mounts for the OEM sized 7" round lights. This modification brought back much of the "Z" look. The left photo is a shot of the small headlights and the right photo is the larger OEM sized headlights.

Once the car was put on the street, I decided a better means of filling the fuel cell was needed (I tired of opening the rear hatch so that I could fill the cell with fuel). To fix this issue, I fabricated a fuel filler using an Acura fuel filler tube, a fabricated fiberglass fuel filler enclosure, and then topped it all off with a Mustang Bullit fuel filler cover placed next to the window, over the fuel cell, and into the fiberglass hatch. Then I stuck a Z emblem onto the Mustang door.

The gutted race interior has been upgraded with Corbeau seats, carpet, and a custom home-made fiberglass dash to house the gauges moved to the top of the cage cross-bar (these were moved from the steering column to make way for the OEM combination switch). The top left photo shows the initial stages of fabricating the fiberglass dash instrument pods and cover. The other two photos are the finished dash:

The new DOT wheels are 11" X 17" Billet Specialies. The all aluminum finish (left photo) was nice, but they over-emphasized their size. To reduce their emphasis, I painted the centers dark charcoal gray metallic. This was accomplished by media blasting the centers, applying the DTM (Direct To Metal) primer, the color coat, and then the clear coat. This has proved to be very durable and a better option (in my opinion) than the powercoating I originally considered. The new appearance shows in the right photo.

Toying with a convertable conversion. What do you think?

In its racing form, the car weighed 2060 pounds, which was as light as I could make it. With the addition of an alternator, fuel filler assembly, fans, headlights, tail assembly for street use, interior, and the heavier DOT wheels and tires, the weight has increased to 2350 pounds empty.

The fiberglass front lip on the front dam broke on impact with a retread carcus at about 70 mph last year. Roger Berry and I discussed options on how I'd always wanted to replace the fiberglass lip with a plate splitter that would be a separate part of the front-end. So after I repaired the fiberglass, Roger cut out the 1/8" aluminum splitter and attached it to the front glass.