The Nissan 240SX came on to the scene in 1989. A long awaited rear wheel drive car (aka RWD and/or FR) in a world of
seemingly all front wheel drive cars (FWD and/or FF). Not only did it bring a front engine, rear drive layout to the
table, but it did so in almost a perfect 50/50 weight balanced setup.
The 240SX was designed to be sporty 2 doors were the only option. 4 wheel disc brakes were standard. The 240SX
quickly became the answer to the discontinued and legendary Porsche 944 in normally-aspirated (aka NA) trim the
240SX and 944 look almost identical on paper and enthusiasts soon caught on. While the Nissan gives up a little
bit in "over" engineering and refinement it doesn't give up much. Comparing price and condition is also where
those worlds separate...just as the 944 was preparing to leave the world, the 240SX entered.
One of the benefits the 240SX offers the home tuner is the plethora of easy to find parts available. Most of Nissan's
(including Infinity) lineups share parts and bolt patterns across the board. This allows for 300ZX big brake upgrades
to be bolt-on affairs. Even with the popular JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) engine swaps; there are a lot of compatible
Nissan parts right here for maintenance. Salvage yards are full of cheap and good condition parts.
The 240SX carries Nissan's reliability and longevity. It's one of the few lines of cars to have very good daily driven
cars showing 100k+ miles on the odometer. In fact, quite a few semi-abused samples can be seen still running at 200k+ miles.
Prices have slowly creeped up especially with the later S14 models. This is due to the fact that the public wants this car,
to be part of the 'drifting' crowd or the sleeper race car groups (with horsepower levels approaching 500HP for diehard
builders through high psi turbo charging) bringing a seemingly docile 4 cylinder sport coupe/fastback to the lights.
Movies such as "the Fast and the Furious", the latest trend of Japanese popularity especially movies, swords, and drifting,
and the fact that with it's relatively low compression ratio (S13's with 8.6:1, even later S14's with 9.5:1) favoring forced
induction and it's totally neutral handling, make for this to be one of the top tuner cars available now at below
$30,000 possibly even at a higher price point. A good S13 model can be picked up for $3,000 with low mileage. While some
creature comforts are absent, and the 'mouse' belts are present; the exterior is timeless the performance endless.
|
