1970 Nissan ‘240Z’ Z432R sells for $1.17m

If you thought you were paying a lot for classic Nissan ‘Z’ cars, spare a thought for the buyer of this particularly rare 240Z.

The 1970 Nissan Fairlady Z432R, as it’s known in Japan, is the holy grail of the S30 generation of Zed. Okay, so calling it a ‘240’ is selling it short, especially since it’s essentially a Zed racecar with a GT-R engine.

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The S20 inline six-cylinder from the first-ever Nissan GT-R (known to many as ‘Hakosuka’) was the powerplant for a series of Fairlady Z 432s, of which 420 are believed to exist.

Rarer still are the few dozen (30-50, says seller BH Auctions) 432Rs, which featured thinner (and therefore lighter) body panels, a fibreglass reinforced plastic bonnet, acrylic side and rear windows, and a 100-litre fuel tank. The point of all this? The Fairlady Z432R was designed to race.

It adds up to a car that’s 100kg lighter than the ‘standard’ Z432, so around 940kg, but with a 118kW/177Nm six-pot driving the rears.

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Thus, even with 98,040km on its odometer, this rare beast sold for ¥88,550,000, or AUD$1.17m.

Prior to this sale, the most expensive auctionfor a Nissan Zed car we could find was a Z432, sold through RM Sotheby’s in 2015 at Amelia Island for, at the time, just a smidge short of AUD$367K. Another sold at the same location two years later for about $247K.

Also going under the hammer at the BH auction was an (almost) equally pricey Toyota 2000GT, a Lancia 037 Stradale, and several rare and tidy various Porsche 911s.