Why did you pick your car?!

What made you choose the s12? I chose it not necessarily because its "better" but because it can accomplish my goals and get the job done. Also I consider it to be the underdog as well. So gimme your answers! :hitit:

i drove by it a milion times while it was for sale and fell more and more in love with it.... then i drove it and was... damn i like this time to mod it....

Why'd I choose myne hmmm....

It was an even trade...I give my fren My 16x6.5 Kosei K1 racing rims and he give me $250 with my used to be turbo'd S12 and a parts car with no papers with 29,000 ORIGINAL miles on it (still wish I coulda pulled that motor and used it, makes me cry thinking of it..oil in it wasnt even close to being black, ok nuff of that)

but yea thats why I got it.

By pure chance. I wen to a car lot in vancouver to check out a 4wd tercel wagon that I saw from the highway. I get in there and the guy there tells me it isn't actually a 4wd but that someone had to put a 4wd back door on it. That killed my interest in the Toyota, so then he says to take a look around. Then from across the lot, covered in leaves and dirt I spy the 200sx. I see a squat looking boxy car, my favorite, and I was instantly drawn to it. I get over to the car and it says turbo down the side and I think to myself "I must own this car". The I look underneath and holy crap, its rear wheel drive, and its got 4 wheel disc's, and independent suspension. Then I actually sit in it and I decide to buy it right there on the spot. I actually fit into this car nicely (I'm 6'9 and weigh 230lbs) and it drives great. So I bought it that day and have loved it more every day since.

I got mine as a grad gift back in '89. I got to pick it...my parents said pick whatever I want under $5k. I almost got a '85 ca20 coupe with auto......then I found my '84 turbo, which I stumbled on, and at the time didn't even know they made a turbo version. So I said the hell with the '85!!!
It cost $4800, and only had 66,000 miles one it, oh...and I am the second owner.
Back then HKS even had a full line of performance stuff for it. At that time I couldn't afford anything, but their cat back exhaust. When it came time when I could afford stuff...HKS discontinued their S12 line....BASTARDS!!!

Always had an affinity for the S12, especially the first time I saw MKII back in '87. Then when I saw the SE and found out it was the same engine as the 3Z, it was all over. Too bad I was only 14 at the time and it would actually be another 5 years before I would own one. Then a little over a year ago, I saw another one for sale and couldn't resist.

Very dramatic story about a boy and his car... Blah, blah, blah

Mine was handed down to me and did the research, met wonderful ppl (member since yahoo), and now can't live without it. That and my yota 4x4 :tongue: Awesome car with racing hertiage.

My first car was an 87 S12 hatch with CA20E. Happend to sumble upon it by chance and didn't really know about this car much until that day. Loved them ever since and sold the 87 CA20E when I happend upon a good condition 85 Turbo model. I found the old yahoo groups s12 site when I got my first S12 and kept up with that and also joined club-s12 soon after it was created. Learned a lot from these cars and enjoy working on them. This is my favorite 80s Japanese car and always will be.

Actually, I was calling up a guy that had a Maxima for sale, but he said it was already sold. Then he told me that he had a 200 sx for sale. So I figured what the heck and went over and checked it out. Took it for a test drive and liked it. I bought it the next day for $1500 after talking him down from $1800. I am the second owner, but the funny part is is the guy I bought it from was Michael Jackson. :mike: :mike: :mike: :mike:
Of course not the singer though. He even gave me the sales reciept from when he bought it. He traded in a 77' Celica as a down payment on it. It is still all original except for the stereo.

Looking for cheap rear drive car to mod after i decided that i wanted to leave my MKII RS2000 Escort pretty well standard.
Found gazelle for $1120 with a years worth of rego, so i got that, drove it around for a while. In the mean time i found another gazelle for sale for $300 with a blown motor, since the motor didn't interest me anyways i got that and did the SR conversion on it instead. Sold the other gazelle after 2 years of service and 0 maitenance and am happily driving my SR20DET S12 now. YAY!
If i wasn't so poor when i started my project i would have likely gotten something a little more ready to drift like a cefiro or a laurel.

me,Found add in paper never heard of a gazelle ever asked all my friends never heard of it. called the people up,Jumped in my dad's car got around the expecting to a piece of shit,When I saw it was 2 door sports car that was it, If it was a auto, I was not going buy it . paid $3000 on the spot, and I have never looked back.

i had seen a few around. they are an alround good package irs, 4 wheel discs,rear wheel drive, two door. with loads of potential and it somthing different somthing that wasnt all that common here. so i did it i bought it then CA18DET it lol

After I totaled my Sunfire GT last xmas eve, I was needing a vehicle. At the time I would work on the weekends at an auction house as a driver. It was sitting by itself in one of the rows and something about the look of it drew me to it. I took it for a boot around the lot a few times and put a bid on it that night. I won the bid at $500. (there was no reserve)

:honda:

When my mate Bob got back from the UK he dropped all the cash he had saved working as a porter on a mint as supra. I was sorta just looking round :spy: with no intention of buying anything while he did the paperwork etc. when I found stashed at the back with all the trade-ins this 2 tone '84 Silvia. I had driven my mate Jay's :guitar: before (N/A ca18 '86 Coupe) and remember it being fun and well balanced and she liked to let the rear wheels go if you made it... This was an '84 Turbo R-X Coupe going for $1500 but I had no money at the time so...
Anyway 6 months down the track this Silvia had been relegated to the "Hide it round the back" part of the yard. So I actually went in and asked about it..the owner of the car yard said I could "take it away" for $500. So I did.
I guess when you've got a Lambo Murcielago parked outside your office an '84 Silvia is perhaps just a piece of scrap on wheels???
I got the snail rebuilt and now she purrs... Still in stock trim for now but looking at sensible (and affordable) mods in the future.

:devil:

CHEAP

REAR WHEEL DRIVE

LOTSA POTENTIAL (CA18DET SWAP)

2 DOOR

SPORTY LOOKS

NUFF SAID..................yes i know i was in caps the whole time, but meh!

Bought mine off eBay for $200. =)

at the time, I was actually looking at S13s at an auction yard here in surrey.

when I first spotted this thing I was like "SWEET Corolla GT.....Nissan? wtf" and walked away...

I kept going back to the auction every week and seeing pretty junky S13s...and I would always scope out the 200sx whenever I walked by it.

interior was clean, no real rust problems, engine bay was emaculate(you guys have seen what it looked like when I first bought it), and it was a cheap rwd car.

I still didn't know much about this car but I put a bid on it..and won it for $1300CAD(which came to freaking $1769CAD after taxes and auction fees). soon after, I found club-s12 and got to know about this car more and more. at first I didn't like it much. it was just to get me around and I tried to sell it a few times and came close one night. but I'm happy I didn't. this car has been troublesome with bad plugs, not passing smog, wheel stud problems and now this possible heater core problem. but I love this car. I'm still planning a motor swap(I'm considering letting my motor overheat so I have to buy a new one ahhahaha).

oh, and it's a mk.I '86 ca20e hatch. if I knew there were turbo versions, I would've searched harder and picked one up.

if club-s12 gets t-shirts, I'd need the one that says on the front, "I bought an S12 cause I couldn't afford an S13, but I don't regret it"

When I finally relenquished my firm grasp on domestic homerism, I still had to have something with RWD. Looked at several 240sx's, some 300zx, even passed on a 240z (stupid stupid stupid stupid) and looked at one other 200sx the night I found mine. I was seriously ready to buy the first one, even though it was a 4cyl. But I decided to go home and check prices on the internet for others in the area. Thats when I found my baby.

Well, I'm on my third S12. My first one was given to me by my parents my senior year in high school. It was an '84 CA20 automatic that they had bought new in '84. Slow as hell, but it drove really nice. I ended up putting that one on it's top. It didn't have the power to get out of the slide it was in. I then went hunting for an '87-'88 SE V6. Found a black one in town, manual tranny. Bought it right away and fell in love with the thing. The power compared with the CA20 was exhilarating! I drove that for a few years before it met it's demise when, on a one way street, a Nissan pickup in the right lane turned left in front of me. Nowhere to go but straight into his driver's door. That car was totaled. Lucky for me, I found another black '87 SE, manual tranny, in town two weeks later! Bought it as soon as I found it. Do you know how hard it is to find an SE without a sunroof and A/C? My first one had neither. I prefer no sunroof and A/C as it lightens up the front end and the roof is more structurally stiff. Well, the one I found this time didn't have a sunroof, but it had A/C. I ditched the A/C the next day and nobody even knew it was a different car. I've had that car since '99. Still love it!

...ahhaha no more S12s for Spooled

he's sent too many to the grave :p

BAHAHAHAHAHA I can't deny it!

I got my Mk.1 about a year or two ago. My Aunt & Uncle bought it brand new in 1986 and kept it in very great interior shape. The engine bay isn't that great... somewhat messy but it still runs great for an 18 yr. old car. Practically this car is older than I am by a few months. When I was 14 I thought this was a Corolla GT-S Notchback but a year ago I find to see that it's a:

200sx XE CA20E
Automatic Transmission.

My aunt and uncle retired and handed this car down to me. Drove it from SoCal Los Angeles to NorCal San Jose. Hey, Still runs great.

I got mine becuase I needed a winter car, and the Celica can't see snow. It took three weeks of looking, and finally we saw something that wasn't rusted to F*** and was fairly cheap. $1000 cdn later I had it, and I had it certified...well about a year ago today. Then in February I realized what I actually had, and the more I drove, and learnt about it the more I loved it...These cars are awesome!!! And so far is has given fewer headaches than women...

Well, the first one I owned was the race car. I bought it not really knowing much about the 200SX, and the more I worked on it and raced it, the more I fell in love with it! Ended up selling that car to finance the next bigger and better race car, but always dreamed about getting a street car to build up.

Then when we started our own machine shop, I knew that I wanted to give all the import guys a good shop to come to, and I also knew that they wouldn't take me seriously driving nothing but American cars. So, it became clear that I needed an Import, and actually considered a Honda for a while :laugh: , but finally decided to get another 200SX. Then after finding this great forum, I knew I would be getting one!

So I found the notch for $50 that had been left at a shop, and then just last week picked up a hatchback. And here I am with two non-running S12's...

Well, I'm on my third S12. My first one was given to me by my parents my senior year in high school. It was an '84 CA20 automatic that they had bought new in '84. Slow as hell, but it drove really nice. I ended up putting that one on it's top. It didn't have the power to get out of the slide it was in. I then went hunting for an '87-'88 SE V6. Found a black one in town, manual tranny. Bought it right away and fell in love with the thing. The power compared with the CA20 was exhilarating! I drove that for a few years before it met it's demise when, on a one way street, a Nissan pickup in the right lane turned left in front of me. Nowhere to go but straight into his driver's door. That car was totaled. Lucky for me, I found another black '87 SE, manual tranny, in town two weeks later! Bought it as soon as I found it. Do you know how hard it is to find an SE without a sunroof and A/C? My first one had neither. I prefer no sunroof and A/C as it lightens up the front end and the roof is more structurally stiff. Well, the one I found this time didn't have a sunroof, but it had A/C. I ditched the A/C the next day and nobody even knew it was a different car. I've had that car since '99. Still love it!
Hmm.. I got 1 out of 2. No sunroof but do have the AC, and it works to.

Can't beat $300 for a "furnished" car. It's pretty luxurious next to my stripped-out Zcar, and the air works. Also I missed having 2-3 friends come along with me, like when I had an '84 Civic as a second car, but this way I get to have another Nissan.
Now that I'm about to get a decent job out of school, I'm thinking of putting some more into this car...it'll be nice but a little off-beat, not just like what the guy next door has.

And here I am with two non-running S12's...
This seems to be a common problem...Fortunately I have not had many problems so far with mine...*knock on wood*

i had $500, and was 15 looking for a car. (not a good combo you buy the first cheapy you find) but i got lucky lol. i bought this 1985 200sx ca20 notchback. it ran decent when i bought it but when i got it home it started to run like shit. my buddy tried to make me sell it, and i almost sent it to its final resting place! I-5 Auto and Truck Wrecking :hit: that was almost the stupidest thing i had ever done. but i got a new motor for it for free and started researching it. then found this site and i will never go back.

I got my 88 SE in 1999 for free. It needed a new rack (fluid flowed out as fast as you could pour it in) and some major trans work (wouldn't go inot 3rd gear). So about $1500 later I had a great running car. The body was a bit rough. The drivers side had been hit at the middle to rear of the door and the adjoining panel. The door and crash bar had been push in so the window only opened till it hit the bar (about 3 or 4 inches). My buddy had a riding lawnmower and a 3' long square stock steel bar. We pulled the door panel off and opened the door, resting the edge on his garage, and used the combo to "persuade" the crashbar in the door back out far enough to allow the window to go down. I drove that car for 3 1/2 years and I put 75,000 miles on it. I even drove it to San Jose from Chicago. I died with 199,550 on the clock thanks to a 92 year old man turning left accross my path while I was doing 55 mph:asshole: :asshole: :wtf: .

I accuired my 87 SE for $2000 from a guy that came into my work all the time. They were moving to Arizona and he didn't want to bring it with. He was the orignal owner and took good care of the car. That car made the trip to LA and up to San Jose this past summer and is running great. This one is an auto though. Creaping up on 193,000 miles and running strong.

These are great little cars.

it was my dads old car, so i picked it up free.

Well....

I had just sold off my 626 2.2L turbo and I was really sick of the FWD crap. So I needed something rwd till i saw another RX7 S4-5 I liked. I saw the gazelle and thought it would be a good a-b car.
Looked over the internet at what a gazelle was and came across this site and found out it was a Silvia.
From there my dreams of another rotor went out the window and I had to learn about piston engines.

a CA18DET later and im here! :boobs:

Ohh yeh the car cost me $3500AUD and was in MINT condition... then I came along :roll:

Do you know how hard it is to find an SE without a sunroof and A/C?
I am 2 for 2. Mine has no sunroof, no A/C. Also it has no cruise control and is an automatic.

Cars kinda circulate through my family. I bought a 2000 Honda Civic sedan as my daily commuter in Feb 2000. Couple years later, my brother needed a car, so I gave it to him. Went carless for a year, then my uncle picked up my cousin's integra and gave me his S12. It originally came from another cousin of mine who had it since 85. In 87 her husband picked up a brand new white / gray SE. That one's still in the family too; with yet another cousin.

Been having lots of problems with the car, so it's kinda disappointing. But I still love it.. lots of memories in it too ever since it's been in the fam. Just wish I could get it runnin right again..

My first car was a 1982 200SX hatchback. Back in '93 I was 16, newly licensed, been working fast food for about a year, and looking for a cheap car. The black hatch was sitting by the road about a mile from my parents' house. So me and my dad went to look at it. It was rusty of course, this being Buffalo, NY, and had 211K on the clock. But it started and ran well, pulled in every gear, and seemed relatively solid. Asking price was $550, I offered $450 and the guy took it. I drove the '82 for a year and a half before selling it for $400, when a guy my dad worked with offered to sell me his 88 Accord hatchback with 144K for $1500 (trade-in value at the time). I drove that car for 4 years before deciding during my last year of college that I wanted an American pickup for a change. Sold the Honda with 216K for $850 and bought a 94 Dakota Sport with 50K. Drove that for two years, moved to North Carolina with it after college, and was really getting sick of it by then. I got to NC, and there were all these old imports around with NO RUST! I was nostalgic for the old S110, so I looked around but couldn't find a decent one for sale. So I started looking at S12's in the spring of 2001.
I had a deal fall through on a loaded 84 CA20E in March of that year, and got discouraged. I started looking again in May. I found a buyer for the Dakota and found my '88 SE V6 the same week. Managed to get all the selling, buying, title transfers, insurance, registration, etc. done within a week.
I got $3500 for the Dakota, paid off the $900 I still owed on it, paid $2000 cash for the 200 with 122K on it, and had $600 left over.
:banger:

well at 1st i had no clue what the hell it was. My dad's buddy had it just sittin.after i did some research and realized what the motor was and how rare of a find it was i was like hell yeah so i picked it up for about 1000. and i love it being that it is different and no one else around will have my motor.

Mine has been in my family since it was new back in 84, my aunt bought it. Then my grandma ended up with a few years after my aunt bought. Then my parents bought last year for my brother's first car, for $500 and its like in perfect condition, except both front seats have tears in them but since there is no rust that makes up for it ;). Now I get as my first car.

I was looking for a runabout, having had a civic for a few months, then a 220gti.
A friend had an S13, and I loved the fact it was turbo'd, RWD and had pop ups.
Then another friend bought an Opel Manta GTE Exclusive, so I starting hunting for one of those, that same friend spotted a Silvia on ebay, and sent me the link.

I emailed him, and bought it off ebay for £400 -> the guy must have been kicking himself, because the auction went higher!!

Then I spotted the current one on ebay with 60k, but rear qtr damage. I bid £300 and won!

So then I had one good shell with 130k, and one damaged with 60k.

I drove the damaged one till the manifold gaskets got the best of me, and put this one on the road a year and a half later. Having scrapped the other shell, but kept the parts I needed.

When I was 16, my dad decided to help me buy a first car. We spent a lot of time at used car lots, test driving cars in the paper, and never really found anything that was both in good condition, was fun to drive and looked good too. Lots of junk, lots of problems people were trying to get rid of. I really liked the Z31 300ZX at the time, but the ones I drove were really beat up and no one had taken care of them.

We looked in the paper one day for more 300ZX's and saw this one listing that said "1987 200SX Turbo". I was like "What? I've never heard of that before." So we went and test drove it. It was everything we were looking for. It looked cool, it was really easy to drive, and it was well taken care of. So it became my first car.

When the turbo blew, my dad footed the $900 bill to put a new turbo in. :( He told me to sell it before anything else blew on it, so I sold it for what I paid for it a year earlier.

I then moved to a 1991 Talon TSi AWD, which was fun, but broke more parts than the 200SX ever did. So I sold that and moved to a 1992 Talon TSi AWD, thinking it would be more reliable. It turned out to be even MORE of a pain. I longed for the days of the 200SX, where I had no worries about the car and could just zip around and have fun.

So when the opportunity arose to import a V6 200SX, I jumped on it. I've been having so much fun with it ever since. :) It may not look as nice or go as fast as my Talons, but the fun to drive factor and the reliability just makes it the best choice in cars by far.

I too was sick of FWD understeer and had just started getting interested in drifting and turbos and all that stuff... So i looked around for a car for a good month before findng 88' 200sx turbo in the paper, when i got there to check it out just about everything was mint so i bought 4 days later, Crashed once drifting, blew the motor, and it is now undergoing some heavy drift / road race modifications.

I'm a hopeless Nissan tragic. Every car I've ever owned has been either a Nissan or a Datsun:

1st: 1985 Z31 300ZX, written off in an accident *sob* *cry*
2nd: 1988 N13 Pulsar Vector sedan, now owned by my next-door neighbour
3rd: 1989 N13 Pulsar GL hatch, still got it

I've wanted a project car I could work on since forever, but because I am who I am I wanted something which was fairly rare. It would have been nice if the Z31 hadn't been written off, they're not overly common, but hey, it's gone now so no use crying over spilt milk. Then I bought a 1979 Mazda RX7 SE-GT to work on, but some drunken asshole crashed a 4WD into it, so that was the end of that. Which is fortunate because I'm seeing more and more first generation RX7s on the roads, so it wouldn't have been the standout I'm chasing.

I went for the S12 because it's Nissan, and it's definitely not common. I'd heard of them before but I didn't know they'd been sold in Australia as Gazelles. Once I worked out that they were, fundamentally, one and the same, I went out and got myself one!

Now if only I could work out what I want to do with it ;)

My first word was "car-car" not momy or dady. Back when I was 10 I told my friends I would drive my car sideways allover. I didn't even knew drifting even exsisted. I got my first se back in 96' From my ex-wifes mom. I didn't know anything about them back then. I just knew that it was v6 and fast. Back then I wanted a 92' 300zx twin turbo. I fell in love with that car over time. I didn't like it at first becouse of the lack of aftermarket support. I raced it alot around town got alot of tickets and raced it alot at the street races (pre- fast and the furious) and had lots of fun beating hondas. I used to search on google.com searching for aftermarket stuff and crap and had no luck at all. Then one day I came across Miker and the mighty sr20de web page I learned alot but was wanting to find more. Then I found this site at the beginning. I joind soon after as iliWyckedOneili. I bought my second one back in 02'. I drove passed it every day. It was an se black and super clean. I picked it up for $1900 after tax. This car is me. It even played a part in why I have a X-wife.lol:) I love my car. People ask me why I just dont buy an s13. They will never understand. I have a passion for my car, a dream that everyone will know what an s12 is. They ask me "So whats your dream car?" and I say I drive it.:)

I love seeing how passionate most of us are about our S12's 8)

. I have a passion for my car, a dream that everyone will know what an s12 is. They ask me "So whats your dream car?" and I say I drive it.:)

i so hear ya man.. people always tell me im wasting my time and money making al this stuff for my car.... man only if they could understand.... the pride and satisfaction i get.. i just cant explain in words... and to be able to help you guys out to get these cars faster and better is also very satisfying...

It was turbo, solid and it cost me 200 dollars

i really gotta start posting more. :roll:

i wasnt looking for a car by any means. i was just getting off work when i noticed the ex owner of my now 200sx, pulling it in the car lot at the store. he had put a for sale sign in it and i didnt think much of it. the next day i went to work, opened up a little early and decided to take a look. all i saw was 200 sx on the steering wheel and that was my only way of knowing what kind of car it was (never saw one till this one.) so i started to look at it more and more and finally i gave the guy a call. he bought it brand new in 85 for his wife. they drove it for 19 years and 146K miles. it runs great, looks good other than a few rusty spots, and was $600. i talked him to $500 and i figured what the hell. so now im the proud owner of my very first Nissan, and my very first RWD car. so im the second owner of it and it is loaded. all options they came with. sunroof, a/c, pw, pl, power everything basically. i love it to death.

After having 3 straight years of car payments and full coverage insurance, im glad to be back to having $28/month insurance, and no payments. once i get rid of one of my saturns ill have some money to drop into the thing. until then i got nothing done except the battery being moved to the trunk, tinted windows, an intake, and a nice sounding stereo. soon enough though (hopefully) ill have my one saturn sold and ill have a good $1800 to drop into the suspension, and possibly get a motor to build. we shall see.

My whole "theroy" on this is most of us got this car by a quiencidence and didn't have the money to get what we actually wanted. But this is a good thing that we didn't have money. If we did we probly wouldn't have bought this car, and we would have never met. We are the ones that will make these cars a classic, like the 240z and the 510. When we have the money we will all have an awesome one of a kind car!

I love seeing how passionate most of us are about our S12's 8)

I hear that.

Yeah, if these had been the price of AE86 - I would have looked elsewhere!

My whole "theroy" on this is most of us got this car by a quiencidence and didn't have the money to get what we actually wanted. But this is a good thing that we didn't have money. If we did we probly wouldn't have bought this car, and we would have never met. We are the ones that will make these cars a classic, like the 240z and the 510. When we have the money we will all have an awesome one of a kind car!

Hrmm...might be true for some members, might even be true for everyone else, but personally as soon as I discovered that there is such a thing as a S12 Silvia, that it was sold in Australia (albeit not as a Silvia, but a Gazelle), and also what the damn thing is capable of, I went out looking for one. Otherwise I would have ended up with either a R31 Skyline project car or a R32 GTR.

Goddamn I'm happy with my little S12 though :mrgreen:

I got mine basicly cause i couldnt afford a S13 and Ive always loved early 80's Jap cars for some reason and well im onto my secound S12 now

my first one i payed $350NZD (about $250US) it was a red notch back 84, ca18et manual.... didnt run at the time so had to trailer it about 150km (about 90miles) home and soon had her fixed up and drove that around for a few months till it died

not long brough my secound one cost me $350NZD its a white liftback 87, ca18et manual..... got it home and it ran ok when i got it.... took it for a warrent (which it failed) and then riped the engine out and its now got a ca18det in it which still dont run after about 3 or 4 months

but i just love the shape and the pop up lights (i have a think for pop up lights its weird i tell you) and the fact that over here in NZ were flooded with Jap cars so theres plenty of hot up parts for me to put on my S12