The current owner of the 280Z called me back the other day, and said he had changed his mind again and wanted to sell the car. We struck a deal, and today I sent him a deposit on the car.

I booked a ticket to fly to Sacramento on May 8th to pick-up the car, in what will hopefully amount to an “easy” 2 day drive back. I made a hotel reservation in Salt Lake City for the evening of the 8th, and hopefully I’ll get back home sometime on the 9th. I took the following Monday and Tuesday off just in case, as well as to have time to do homework and perhaps get the car registered. That might have to wait a few weeks– with taxes plus the 5 year “Collector Car” registration (which makes the Z emission exempt), it’s not going to be cheap.

I wish I had more time and money to make the road trip a bit more fun, but it will be nice just to get the car and be on the open road for a couple of days to see what it’s all about. I do plan on taking the digital camera with me to take a few shots along the way home, though.

A couple of interesting things– the fuel gauge on the car currently doesn’t work, and it also doesn’t have air conditioning. That drive through Nevada is going to be a hot one! I plan on taking some basic tools, some water, flashlight, and probably some extra gas with me. Hopefully that plus the AAA Membership will keep me in one piece. (Let me mention the AAA Membership has already been valuable– they have a really cool online mapping thing available to subscribers, as well as hotel discounts). I also found a place online to buy a replacement battery and a car charger for almost nothing.. I’ll post more about it later depending on whether or not I’m happy with my purchase when it comes in the mail.

Nonetheless, I’m pretty excited, and it will be fun to do a long road trip again. I haven’t really done much over 8-9 hours of driving since my crazy ass Spring Break trip to South Padre Island in the Spring of 1999. Should be fun!