MadaboutKitcars

Time to discuss my Z300s project

Nothing has been confirmed yet but im confident Chris and myself will work out the details.

For those of you that don't know me I've been playing with kit cars for a very long time now.
My past kits include Westfield, Midas Gold, GTM Rossa, Domino HT etc.

In 2010 I wanted a toy but money was tight, very tight.
It had to be practical and I wanted 50/60's styling.

At the time there was nothing out there.
When money is tight you have to be prepared to do everything.

What I ended up with was the Roadster







So it took an mx5 and just over 2 years - most of that was spent sanding my fingertips away - no power tools and no garage.

I drove it for a while and then my wife walked out and I couldn't afford my toy.
It was bought by a Sheik and as far as I know it is now in UAE.

So im back on my feet , kind of.
Time to think of a new toy

I would dearly love the 250swb convertible, but now I live in a flat with nowhere to work.

So the Z300s looks like my best option. I did look at the Bertini but its pricey for what it is and I don't like the rear end styling.

I love the curves of the older cars but this time im going neo classic.
Modern lights, no trying to hide the modern interior and modern low profile tyres.
I see the z300s rear end look more like this.



As for the front end



I know this doesn't look like a Z300s but those of you that have followed Chris from the start know that he is always developing new ideas.
Back in 2012 he made this



A few nips and tucks - a hybrid of the two

I bought a Z3 for £800 with 11 months MOT and im driving it for the rest of the summer and then hopefully transform it in Autumn.

Feel free to comment - I have hundreds of ideas going around in my head but I cant choose wheels etc until the body is made.

modern interpretation of the rear of the Z300S by Nubodi



I love the idea of mix and match front and rear ends which is why I am having a SWB front end to switch at will with the Z300S I already have.

nice to see you back, Roadster. Your car still looks very smart.

Thanks Garry

Mixing, matching and adding new ideas is the way to do it. I really like the ideas you have for your new project and I wish you the best of luck.

proof of concept

Most of the details are confirmed

Although I was surprised just how pretty the original z300 is.



The vision




The front end will be based on the Z300 but that it self had the 250 gto in its make up.
The pics show how far Chris had got and the mods required to get the desired look.

The original cars were all hand built and every one of them was different.
But this is no replica, its a Tribute.
I have always loved the front end styling.

Reminds me a bit of the Evanta Aston.

Yes another beautiful recreation - but the price tag is high
Db4 donor vehicle and hand crafted aluminium body.

Mated to the SWB. Think Chris built that front end for the MX didnt he? Shame!

My wife is impressed that her little Hyundai was photoshopped in next to blue Ferrari and now an Aston!

Cheers, Bob.

It enhances the image don't you think. Anyway Bob we all know that's your daily driver really!

PS
You got those steels on yet??

Not got the wheels back yet, the chap who's going to do them is very busy at the minute so I'm leaving them with him. Especially as one of his problem jobs is on my actual daily driver, an Austin Maestro Turbo Diesel.

Cheers, Bob.

Gulp! Uhum!

I don't want to deflect the thread too far, but I knew you'd all want to see a picture of my daily driver. 152,000miles and still going strong.

Cheers, Bob.

Im not sure how much more we could deflect this post.

Takes me back though I worked at a rover dealership when these were new
We got all excited when the mg maestro turbo was released.

I had an MG Maestro back in the day as a daily to save my Integrale from the everyday grind and it was a very capable and under-rated car.

I used to live near Norwich in the late Eighties, early Nineties and you'd often see the odd cream and red MG Maestro around the city.

I had an 'A' reg MG Maestro 1600 back in '84.

Stupid digital dash kept telling me I was going 288mph on the A9 and the fuel gauge would drop to three gallons remaining ten minutes after you filled up and still be reading the same when it ran out of petrol a couple of hundred miles later.

It would also get scared if you drove it quickly and the female voice synthesiser would announce 'warning, brakes require service' as you approached a mountain hairpin at 288mph. Bloody awful thing.

Wow, there is a pattern emerging here lol.

Mine was G reg with a proper dash. In fact thinking back, somebody broke in and stole the dash to get at the radio. Perhaps they had one with a talking dash and were fed up with it.
BL must have sorted lots of problems out by then as I had no problems with mine. Except rust. And it wouldnt do 288.

Now that you mention it, mine got broken into twice in a week while it was parked on a housing estate in Cardiff. First time they smashed two side windows to get in, did an untidy search of my cassette collection, decided they didn't like my taste in music and left it with the doors hanging open. The local police were really helpful, saying '...what do you expect parking a nice car like that in a shittole like this' it was the finest compliment anyone ever paid it.

A few days later, after spending a small fortune having the windows replaced, I parked it nearby with the doors unlocked, the glove box open and nothing of value in the car.

Two hours later it had another broken window and someone had stolen the stick-on smiley Garfield from the back window (remember those?). The fecking half wits hadn't even tried the doors before breaking in.

I had to cut a bit of plywood to replace the smashed rear quarterlight as I couldn't source one in Cardiff, and was driving back up to Scotland (where I lived) when I got stopped for speeding by a motorcycle cop, who was also curios as to why I was driving a half-timbered Maestro.

He asked me the usual question '...do you know how fast you were going?' to which I replied 'why yes officer, according to my speedo I was going two hundred and eighty eight miles per hour' delivered with such deadpan sincerity that he let me off with a bollocking.

Those were the days, when coppers were allowed to exercise discretion...

I too had a G plate mg maestro, it was a quick car, I remember buying and fitting a sports exhaust at the stoneleigh show probably 1993 we just drove it up a step behind one of the buildings and swapped the exhaust then entered the drag race they used to put on, scary 10 foot wide road with temporary barriers either side somewhere behind the horse oval track. We braked that hard at the end of the ¼ mile it tore one of the linings clean off the pad, so we went back to the halls and bought a set of mintex pads and a K&N air filter kit, then did the drag race again.
Reminds me just how big that show used to be, when it was all the big sheds that where the car for sale area this year they seemed ¼ mile long and it used to take 2 days to go round it, in fact the hall the tribute stand was in this year just used to be for food trucks, il try dig some photos out.
Maestro was blue/grey mettalic 2.0 litre, was very rusty when it got swapped for a mk1 mr2. Ed

project cancelled

The trouble when 2 creative minds meet is that you tend to get taken off in an unexpected direction.

The Zagato style Z300s has been canned



From simple sketches and a couple of hours brainstorming a new vision has been created.
No more for now but once its under way I will share more.

All I can hint is that It will be another Tribute model on your wish list, as if the choice isn't hard enough already.

What a shame, the ZZ Volante project looked interesting.
Let us all know more about the new project when possible.