Shai Maltese's '90 Nissan 300ZX

Mike Says The reason I bought this car is that I’ve been a fan of Subaru as far back as I can remember. It sounds kind of corny, but this is my dream car. I’ve always wanted a wagon that can make gobs of power, but I can still load up with shit from Home Depot and whoop up on a Mustang on my ride home. I was a Honda guy for 10+ years, and when I bought this car it really made me wonder why I was in a Honda for as long as I was — I’m now a Subaru guy for life!

John Says I bought this car four years ago locally from a retired teacher. It was 100 percent stock and stored for many years of its life. I daily drove it every day, slowly fixing up small things. A year later, I was ready to take on a project and was very attracted to the 3.0-liter Camry V-6 a small handful of people on the boards were swapping into these cars. The flat powerband of the engine and the torque it put out make for a very fun car and are quite competitive in autocross or track days. I bought a ’93 Toyota Camry shortly after, yanked the engine out and rebuilt it from the ground up with some simple breathing mods that allowed the “family car” V-6 to turn into a fire-breathing beast.

Dustin Says I wanted a car that was great looking, not over-the-top and still usable every day. I love that no one knows what my car really is, then I drop the clutch and it rockets off, leaving them in my dust with their jaws dropped. The Mazdaspeed 6 is a great handling car and is very fun to play with. This car is my weekend toy and is babied to the extreme, and I plan on having it for quite a long time. There are still some things I want to do to it in the future: upgrade to a twins-scroll turbo, a bigger brake setup with drilled and slotted rotors, a carbon-fiber hood/trunk lid, and even a widebody kit.

Ryan Says A child of the electronics age, I can contribute parts of my upbringing to the Nintendo and PlayStation2. Naturally, upon my discovery of the Gran Turismo series, I was hooked on Japanese sports cars. With my life savings of $10K in hand, I set out to find an AWD, turbocharged, manual transmission car to fulfill my passion. My 3000GT VR-4 was hiding in the local paper, under a short heading: “1994 3000GT VR-4: 120K miles, $10,000.” One visit and I was hooked — the car was mine within the week. It was completely stock and was suffering from bad spark blowout and a badly leaking stock BOV. Upon delivery of the car, I immediately started down the path of upgrading as I restored the it. Since then, I’ve been restoring the car while adding my own personal touches. Not liking my old, tired green paint, I took a chance and tried my hand and spray-painted the entire car matte black, and it came out great!

Steve Says I chose the Nissan 350Z because Datsun and Nissan models have been in my family for a long time. My dad had a Datsun 240Z, 280ZX and 280ZX Turbo, my mother had a 300ZX, and my first car was a ’95 240SE SE. My friend, Dennis Wittekind, led me to this car, which I purchased from the San Antonio Z Club President in 2010, purely based on its mint condition — a ’04 model with 27K original miles! Since buying the 350Z, which I’ve dubbed her “Zoey,” I have changed a few things and have daily driven the car with no trouble at all. I wanted something that was reliable, easy to drive, looked good and, most importantly, performed when it needed to. The “hellaflush” and “stance” movement looks good and all, but I prefer to keep my cars truly functional to what they were intended for: driving and performance. As far as future modifications go, I’m looking to change the wheel setup, a few more exterior things to wrap up the Nismo/track look, as well as getting around to some serious engine work.

Chris Says Residing in Manahawkin, NJ, I work as a mechanic at RDN Automotive, a small shop that’s one town over in Barnegat. I don’t really have a set schedule and the work environment is very laid back, but we’re still able to accomplish lots of quality work. When I set out on my search to find a car, I originally wanted a truck, but soon realized that it would be a waste of gas and money to get a truck that wouldn’t even see mud, due to lack of free time. I started to look for cars and came across the Subaru WRX. I had no prior knowledge about Subarus, so when I purchased my car it quickly became a learning experience. Over the past two years of owning my car, I’ve become quite the expert on Subarus and I’m always willing to share that knowledge with anyone who is interested. Throughout those years, I also began modding my car, starting with the basic intake, exhaust and tune, but quickly became power hungry and upgraded the turbo, fuel system and had my car pro tuned. That is where I am currently at today, and I am satisfied with the power I’m making, it is a very fun daily driver. All of my photos are taken by my good friend Tyler Sladen, who is an amazingly skilled photographer and never ceases to amaze me with the outcome of his work.

Scott Says I grew tired of seeing straight-line SRT-4s (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and decided to build mine with an autocross and time attack focus. I’ve been a Neon owner since I got my driver’s license, so it was a natural choice to stick with a platform I was familiar with. I love the underdog reputation that the car has and how much it always seems to be hated on. There are tons of Neons here in Nova Scotia, Canada, and I like the challenge of building one that stands out. I’ve changed a lot of people’s minds about these cars with one quick drive. This project is far from complete, so maybe I’ll have a shot at a magazine feature down the road!

Bryan Says I purchased this car way back in high school as my first car. What started off as a stock car that I was only going to throw some rims on, turned into an obsession where I ended up taking it to a whole new level. This car experienced many versions as my tastes changed and now I finally have it to a point where I am happy with it. The accomplishment I’m most proud of with this car is pulling off a 12-hour transmission swap with no major problems. This just shows how with a little bit of research, hard work and taking the time to prepare for the task at hand, anything can be accomplished.

Cody Says I’m from Beaver Falls, PA, and work as a mechanic at Benders Auto Service. I buy and sell cars as a hobby — this is my 31st car and 11th 240SX! This is my daily driver, but everything is about to be changed on the car. The whole drivetrain and suspension is going to be swapped out and put on my “missile” car, the wheels are being changed out, and the 180SX aero is being switched out for a more aggressive look. I never consider a project finished, and this car is for sure not! The plan is to have the car back on the streets in late 2012 looking better than ever. The only thing I plan to not change is the exterior paint color, because I like pissing the guys on Zilvia.net off!

You might say Dale Myers is on a conquest. Of course, if you said that you’d be a huge douchebag, but we’d forgive you if only because the funky ’80s sports coupe you see here is Dale’s third Chrysler Conquest. We’d actually like to meet Dale, because it takes a pretty special person to own just one Conquest, so owning three of them would suggest he’s downright coo coo for Cocoa Puffs or at least hooked on the wedge-shaped madness that is this Diamond Star bastard child.

As the saying goes, it’s more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow. Clearly, Adam Barber understands and appreciates this, given his choice for a dual-purpose daily driver and weekend racer. Not that the NCP91 Vitz, or Yaris as they’re called here in North America, is a dog in the performance department; with a VVT-i 1.5-liter 4-banger that pumps out 107 hp and a curb weight of just over 2,300 lbs, this little hatchback delivers a surprisingly lively driving experience right off the showroom floor.

It’s funny how things come to be in one’s possession, especially when it comes to cars. Ronald Vasquez has been the proud owner of several nice Honda cars in his day, yet now he simply can’t be torn from his latest love: the Mitsubishi EVO X.

It’s not often you find someone whose defected from the AWD grip and Boxer growl of a STI to instead race a FWD platform, but that’s exactly what James Houghton has done. It all started when he did a JDM KLZE engine swap into his first car, a ’97 Mazda MX-6. That car posted a very respectable 13.6 in the quarter-mile, but after having gone as far as he could with it, James decided to make the jump to a Honda since all his buddies were modding and racing theirs. Like so many of us, James ended up with a B16-swapped EG hatchback.

Love ’em or hate ’em, there’s no denying that the Honda Civic has played a huge role in creating the Japanese tuner car scene we all enjoy today. The reasons are plentiful: small and lightweight, nimble handling characteristics, ease of modification, race-bred pedigree, and bulletproof reliability. Although some of us may throw our hands up and cry out “wrong wheel drive,” it’s hard to deny that the Civic is by and large the dominating force of the FF performance world, or that Honda had anything other than an absolute smash hit with the ’92–00 Civic platform.

It’s not every day we feature a Lancer ES, especially one equipped with an automatic transmission. But here we are, scratching our heads in amazement at Daniel Sanchez’s “Lancerlution,” a truly unique project started by Road Race Motorsports and now in the hands of Road Race Engineering (RRM splintered off from RRE when the two owners went their separate ways).

As North American automotive enthusiasts, there are few cars that carry the allure of the Nissan Skyline. Perhaps one of the all-time greatest series of vehicles, not only are these cars (namely GT-R models) fantastic examples of engineering and mechanical mastery, but until very recently, those of us on this side of the Pacific were tortuously denied access to them.

After recently watching a bunch of highlights from the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona, we have become obsessed with prototype racers around the office. Big power, lightweight and nimble with a mid-engine layout — I mean, what more can a car enthusiast ask for? That got us thinking about a way that mere mortals might someday hope to achieve a similar type of feeling, and aside from the typical Ferrari and Lamborghini MR options (not exactly attainable for most of us), there’s one clear choice: the Toyota MR2. Although it would be a bit of a stretch to directly compare a MR2 to a Daytona prototype, or even a Ferrari, Robert Canter doesn’t care. His MR2 means the world to him; we can tell by how many exclamation points he used in his submission. At first glance, this car is very clean and subtle. The exterior has been converted to the later ’98+ JDM spec, which to the untrained eye is really not that much different from the older style (Robert’s car is a ’91), but the differences are definitely there.

If we were to take 100 people and ask each one to describe their favorite type of motorsport, the likeliness that the words “parking lot” or “cones” would come up is pretty slim. That’s really a shame, though, because the “motorsport for the masses” is based around those two very things. On a core level, autocross sounds very simple, but if you’ve never been behind the wheel of a car trying to dodge cones, then you ought to put it on your to-do list.

In the realm of modified cars, it seems rare to see one that has been owned by the same person for more than, say, a couple years. Of course, that’s not true for everyone, but most of the time cars get bought, built and then sold. But that’s not everyone’s style, and Roland Nemerson is one of the few and proud who can legitimately claim to know everything about his car’s history. Why, you may ask? Simple, Roland is the original owner of this ’89 240SX, so he has literally seen it all.

It’s not often we feature a German-made sedan, but when we do it’s normally a high-performance model like an Audi S4 or VW Golf R. But sometimes a build comes along that intrigues us enough to step outside our comfort zone by featuring something that’s less about go and more about show, less about carving corners and more about turning heads.

If buying a bigger turbo instead of paying the phone bill sounds familiar, you know a bit about tuning ’til you’re broke. If you’ve bid on an über-rare JDM part on eBay when the rent was due, you’re experienced at tuning ’til you’re broke. And if your girlfriend has dumped you or your family has planned an intervention related to your car obsession, chances are you’re an expert at tuning ’til you’re broke-ass-broke.

In 1985 Mazda was seduced by the siren known as rallying, resulting in the production of the turbocharged and AWD 323 GTX. Having shown real promise during the 1986 season, the Mazda was seen as a big threat in the WRC the following year. It was considered by many to be the perfect size and shape for rallying and was widely regarded as a sweet-handling car. But the GTX never quite lived up to its promise, with its engine lacking the necessary punch and the transmission being more fragile than a Fabergé egg.

It’s not very often that I see a car and think, “Wow, you really don’t see a lot of those getting modified.” I’m not talking about that red and gold Geo Storm parked down the street with AutoZone fender accents and a lightning bolt plate frame or that 6-cylinder automatic Mustang with a Mugen badge on the trunk. I’m talking about a car that actually has a lot of potential, but that for some reason or another was never widely embraced by the tuning community. When we first saw the submissions for this issue, there were a few cars that stood out because they were really different from what we’re used to seeing day in day out. Of those, this G20t was our favorite, so we caught up with owner Ace Gentner to hear the inside scoop on what made him decide to take the tuning road less traveled.

It’s tough to build a 240SX that stands out from the crowd these days. Due to the platform’s popularity among tuners, the variety and style (not to mention build quality) varies in a major way, depending on where you look. Seeing as how this is the Readers’ Rides issue, full of cars that are all driven by actual readers in the real world, we weren’t necessarily looking for a purpose-built race car to put on the cover, but rather a clean street-driven car that caught our eye right from the get go. And although we received many great submissions, this Juniper Green S13 kept coming back to the front of the conversation as our favorite of the bunch, so we decided to take a closer look at Galvin Logan’s 180SX clone.