Tom_K

The slam panel. There are pictures of how it’s welded to the sides of the engine bay which the OP was concerned about but imho look fairly standard. Just curious as to how things should look.

I had a set of alloygators on a set of wheels once; they saved the rims a couple of times (being a careless, in the dark, in a rush etc and just brushed the kerb). Only issue, and it's a biggy, is the way they're designed to stay in place also scratches the rim. There's a knack to fitting them properly; I spent the time and did them right, they never budged BUT they use little metal tabs to give them some purchase. These rubbed against the very inside edge of the rim, slightly under the tyre. So when they were removed, they'd caused little patches for water to get in and bubble under the powder coat. They're also a bit water/salt/crap trap which doesn't help with the things mentioned above. Not sure if they've improved the design since then, but this was about ~4 years ago.

Bit of a thread revival here but I'm curious for future reference; That front panel with the images of the spot welds, that looks like fairly factory panel joining to me, or is that not how these are assembled?

Nicely done I've often contemplated doing the exact thing you'd planned; buy a 'cheap' NA, auto. Then buy an Aristo an a 350/370 box and doing a conversion. Like others have said, I fear the prices of the Nissan gearboxes will start to skyrocket. I come from the Nissan world and you're right about the CD09 /CD009 information; it's all over the place! I know this because I need one for my 350 :| If I were to do a conversion, I'd use the 370 box; it's completely different so there's no confusing it with a weaker item, but the adapter plate is also different obviously as the 370z engine is different.

Having done a bit of facebook stalking, I'm pretty sure the car I saw belongs to James; it looked lovely! TheTurtleshead; your list of cars is right up my street, I spent a lot of time in/around Portsmouth and surprised as I don't think I ever saw any of them. As for my 350; totally agree that's it's a bit marmite. The full story is that I was looking for an R33 Skyline and this came up, as it's badged as a Skyline. It was super local and a very good price as it needed some work (clutch and flywheel were on their way out), so I took a bit of a punt. It's been great fun, and I can't stop myself fixing cars up, but in hindsight, I should have held-out for a Skyline and bought one back then as like Supras, they've gone up in value too lol Budget, now there's a tricky one. I'm very flexible! Ideally I want a TT 6 (obviously!), but I would also go for an auto if the price was right. I'd also go for something not-original, as in with a TT 6 conversion for example with a 350 box. I know it's not 'pure' but again, if the price was right I'd go for it. The thing I still need to figure out is if I'm comfortable spending a certain amount on one of these over a lot of other cars. I fully appreciate you can't compare a Supra to an M135i for example, but on paper, one of those makes a lot more sense for the ££.

Thanks for the warm welcome all; I was a little bit skeptical of how active forums are these days, having come from the form glory days of the late 2000's. In terms of where in Hampshire, I'm Southampton way, which reminds me. A few months ago during the summer, I saw a beautiful metallic green Supra near Romsey while I was stuck at some lights. I'm a sucker for green and it looked immaculate! I must admit too that although I'm lucky enough to be in the position to get one these days, I may yet find that I'm still priced-out. Purely because at some point, sensible head will kick in and wonder what else is available for the same money.

Morning All, I'll try an be succinct here but I do tend to waffle so...Hi everyone! Backstory: Been into cars since I was old enough to know what they were, had my fair share and I'm a *little* ocd with how I take care of them. I think this comes from the thought that I'll never buy a new car, but I can make an older one like new with a bit of elbow grease. To give you a flavour of this, I had this e36 a couple of years ago and slowly 'restored' it by stripping and re-painting the underside, filling everything full of wax and retrofitting as many optional extras as I could, like full computer, cruise, pdc, full leather and the mammoth job of retrofitting digital climate control which involved removing the entire interior, dash & heather matrix etc. Anyway, it looked like this: And the underside looked like this: After I'd had my fun with this, I was on the lookout for the next weekend toy. Long story short, my current one is a Nissan 350GT (Skyline in japan), with the manual box and brembos, which is half the reason I bought it as that's pretty rare in these. Again, I've been working on it: What can I say, I hate rust! So now we come to me being here; in typical fashion, back when I could afford to buy a Supra, I couldn't afford the insurance. Now I can afford the insurance, the prices of the cars have shot up, but I remain positive lol I'm basically here to glean as much knowledge as I can on them and see if I can buy one. That was succinct, right?...