In this week’s Wednesday Want we’ve found something truly special in the classified adverts and thought it really deserved some attention. You can check out past Wednesday Want entries right here.
Remember when big exhausts, wild body kits, and massive spoilers were all the rage? We certainly do. This is why for this week’s Wednesday Want we take a look at an iconic car from the tuner car craze of the late ’90s into the early aughts.
The Fast and the Furious, along with its sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious, gave us a campy look at the fiercely popular tuner scene. These movies are still ridiculous today. However, they’ve cemented themselves into car culture and we’re sure many of you have fond memories of the films.
The third installment, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, gave us a slight departure from the previous two films. Since drifting was the newest obsession in the tuner scene, Universal sought to cash in. Thankfully, it still kept the over-the-top cars and cringy writing we associate with the franchise.
The car for this week’s Want comes from that third movie. Driven by the Drift King himself, Takashi, this Nissan 350Z saw all sorts of sideways actions up and down the mountain passes.
The 350Z comes with all the crazy styling and add-ons one would expect from a car made famous by the franchise.
To give the 350Z a JDM look, the builders gave it a VeilSide Version 3 widebody kit. They also opted to give it the optional carbon fiber hood and spoiler, making this kit quite rare. The sticker price ain’t cheap either, at nearly $6,000 just for the parts.
Keeping with the JDM theme, the 350Z features a set of VeilSide Andrew Racing Evo V wheels. Both rare and expensive, if you’re looking to outfit your car with a set, expect to pay about $1,500 a pop.
To give the House of Kolor paint job some contrast a custom vinyl wrap found its way onto the car. It features that enduring emblem of speed — a scarab beetle?!
Under the hood, the 3.5-liter V6 sports a twin-turbo setup from Australian company APS. A pair of stainless steel headers, also from APS, and a Magnaflow exhaust rounded out the performance mods. According to Universal, with the add-ons the 350Z made around 460hp. This is a fair bit more than that stock 287hp the car saw in 2002.
Of course, a NOS nitrous system comes on the car as well.
Venturing into the interior the upgrades are fairly sparse. A pair of Sparco Evo L seats compliments the Sparco steering wheel and pedal set. Other than that there’s a Safety 21 roll cage and a big Sanyou sound system for your banging tunes.
During the build process, Universal felt the car’s handling was pretty much perfect for what it needed. However, to improve the stance slightly, the 350Z got a set of RSR coil springs.
The 350Z is currently for sale in Retford, Nottinghamshire by AutoLogix. It’s commanding a staggering price though. Clocking in at £99,950(~$134,000 USD) it’s several times more expensive than it was new. Even with only 11,000 miles and in fantastic condition, that price seems obscenely high.
However, the original film’s Mitsubishi Eclipse supposedly sold for $120,000, so AutoLogix might not be that far off.
If you’re a serious fan of the movie and looking to relive the glory days of early 2000’s tuner culture, this might just be the car for you.
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