First car love -- Project 240-1

[Grae]

A little history
Officially I joined the club back in 2008 aaannndd didn't make it to a single event. Yes.. I was one of those people who swears they'll come and then didn't make it... then 2009 rolled around and I found myself with my first project car -- 1992 Nissan 240sx.

Our love was not a long one by car standards.. but twas my first and will always have a place in my heart... rather than describe it all I'm sure pictures below do it far more justice:





would you believe water damage?


And then I started to get ambitious...







And then it all came to an end..


Oh the irony -- Yes that is the BCDC sign in the background "Thank you for visiting - Please drive safely". T-boned while turning into an AutoX event.



Over the 1.5 years I owned it I managed to put on 30,000 km and it all just sparked my now complete addiction to motorsport.

Although this is was to be a thread for current builds I had to pay homage to my first build before writing up my current one!

[Grae]

For the next episode in this story see: Try again! -- Project 240-2

[ginger]

Cool story Graeme! I never really knew anything about your first car. Too bad it ended too soon. Did you at least make the auto-x event?

[Grasshopper]

Any more info on how the T-bone steak happened?

[Grae]

Thanks Kevan! Fortunately I did make it out to a few events and I think an AutoX 101 with it.

I think this may have been my first event back in 2009 (Slush 2)

[Photo from thephotonerd flickr (full event) it was a wet one!!!]

and a few shots from 2010 (Slush 1 & 2):



sadly 2010 - Slush #2 was the fateful day of the accident.
I was turning left off Ford Road into the pad. A rather large old pickup truck (style with open rebar bumper etc.) was behind me. I am fuzzy on the details, as I started to turn in I heard my passenger gasp and in the corner of my mirror it looked like the pickup was on the wrong side of the road and then.. impact..
The other driver phoned ICBC before I even had a chance to and took 100% liability making the whole process as smooth as possible for me. In his statement of what happened his story was that he could not stop in time in the wet and tried to swerve to avoid rear ending me but caught me mid corner. To my mind and from what I vaguely recall I was highly suspicious he had been impatient with me driving 'slowly' at the 50 km/hr speed limit and had attempted to overtake me on the left. It doesn't make sense to me that he would swerve to avoid me in the direction that I was already turning nor how he would hit me in the rear quarter panel like that but I honestly couldn't say for certain.

All that being said i'm really happy everyone walked away unhurt. In one picture from the accident you'll see two friends that had been in my car at the time of the accident. My friend holding the back of his head I'm fairly certain is just stretching it out a bit.. but he had been sitting in the back seat. For those of you who have never seen the back seat of a 240... there isn't much of one. He had been sitting behind me as well with his feet on the passenger side for optimum leg room and his back literally directly where the truck hit us. I cannot believe how the worst that came from this was just a little whip lash. The rear strut bar is directly behind the rear seat and may have been the deciding factor in keeping him safe (I wish I had a picture of it after) but it was completely kinked and the welds for the mounting point burst.

[Probie]

Cool to see your first 240 it looked pretty clean, takes me back to my first 240. Its Mike by the way incase you didn't realize it haha