Chesterfield

Excellent news Billy - let the summer fun commence!

As Jacko says, this was about the driving and the meeting of like minded folk - and what a great bunch they all are! As I said to others on the day, it is a shame that we are not allowed to inform other owners about this event on other forums, as I'm sure many would have wanted to take part. Indeed I beleive there are people on other sites enquiring about meets in the Northwest Area, though sadly its forbidden to inform those owners about meets arranged on this site. I feel sorry for those owners, but we cant do anything about it without being accused of causing trouble. Shame really, but never mind, there will be more of these meets arranged in the future, and maybe by then they may be allowed to be informed about our meets. A great day out - and I really must get my pictures sorted. Thanks again Jacko and others for putting in so much effort.

I thought about this at one point, but the US has 30 Zeds well and truly beaten. Just a quick search and question on 350z-tech resulted in an aerial photo of a US Z car meet, I stopped counting 350Z's after I got to about 70 odd. Europe maybe - but not the world.

If you win it its a decent film to keep on the shelf so nothing to be worried about - if you dont win, let me know and Ill lend it you.

Ill lend it you Tim.

We didnt regret our decision to buy the roadster either, a fabulous car and a lot of fun with the roof down in the summer. Though as Tracy burns easy and we fancied a change to a coupe, the time was right to move on for us. Yes you are correct, that is the tardis feature. Just be very careful - only load soft stuff in there to be safe, and always get someone to watch as you lower the lid back down, or keep checking to make sure nothing fouls it. If you do break anything while using the tardis feature, Nissan Warranty will most deffinitley not cover it, but if you ever find yourself needing just that little bit extra space, you can use the tardis to get you out of a hole. It was certainly put to good use at last years JAE.

You said you wanted it as your avatar when we were in the pub, but you couldnt quite see it that size, so thought you would like it Its the right size though! Ive almost finished uploading all my pics of the wales meet, so with everyone elses too, im sure people will be able to come up with some great sigs if they want them.

That jack plug looks very similar to an older stye immobiliser design whereby you had to touch a fob against the contacts withing 30 seconds of entering the car, otherwise it would not start.

Sorry to bring this up again, but thought I woul let you know what I spotted today... It was Monday when first noticed a new "awareness" poster on the back of the majority of busses in Chesterfield. I did not take that much notice, just that it was another one of the typical "look for motorcyclists" type advert. Anyway - today on my way to work, I got stuck behind a bus for a while, and had a good look at the advert. It says: mirror, MOTORBIKE?, signal, manouvre With an acompanying picture of a motorcycle. The irony I spotted, was that the motorcycle is coming round a bend, on the wrong side of the white line. Brilliant

It also appears we found a certain forum members' Welsh business venture.....

In the process of uploading about 100 photos now, but heres a personal favourite to discuss while you wait..... And to quote one of those seated at the table..... A pickle tray is like a voyage of discovery However, it appears Val may have discovered some class A drugs hidden in a nan..

Big enough Val?

Some fantastic pics - that vertical wall of mist over the tops was quite spectacular!

Yes good idea on the plates. As I say im willing to give the censoring a go, unless there are any professional video editing folk out there that can do this a lot quicker.

No problem, I can have a go - plus then if we have any graphic artists that fancy creating masterpieces for us all, they will have a central point of contact/distribution.

If you want to email me the original AVI file, I can have a go with the software I have on trying to blank out all the number plates on the video, or even replace with the club logo. or if you can upload the original avi file to a file sharing site I can download it and let you know when Im done, so you can remove it again. Would be great to be able to share, so dont mind giving it a go.

No, wouldnt be slating it at all, the roadster was a brilliant car, and tremendous fun in the summer sun. We had one for well over a year, and experienced all seasons with it. It is/was Tracy's daily drive, and weekend/evening fun for me - so a very similar situation. Having had open top motoring for some time, it was a very dificult decision to move to a solid roof, but we just fancied a change and the lines of the coupe had won us over during the last 12 months. If you do seriously consider a convertible - check the allignment of the roof cover once the roof is down. Some can be a little out and only by maybe 5 or 6mm, doesnt affect any working, but its just one of those niggling little things that annoyed me, and I could see it in the wing mirror with the roof down. Should be a very easy fix for the dealer, but something to look for.

There were a couple in and around Bala and betws-y-coed that were not in our group. You can just imagine them out for their Sunday drive in their rare sports car, round a bend and come face to face with 30 more! Shame we didn't have chance to invite them along - would have been nice for them maybe. They may now be searching the internet for 350Z clubs though and asking about a large number of Z's in Bala, so they may well find us afterall.

Hmmm... you may want to get a cup of tea for this one... We have had a roadster for a number of years. An MX5. It was great summer fun, and I certainly would not strongly advise against a roadster at all. We swapped for the roadster Z in Dec 2005 after about 6 happy years with the MX5. The main reason we went for a convertible 350Z was because of how much we enjoyed the open top motoring in the summer. There really is nothing like having the top down and throwing the car round some country roads on a summers day. Absolutely brilliant. However, there are dissadvantages. The missus has to have something on hand to tie her hair back, otherwise after an afternoon with the roof down, its just a mess. Also more recently Tracy had become very susceptible (sp?) to burning in the sun, so after a couple of hours with the roof down, we found ourselves putting it up and turning the aircon on, which defeated the object of a convertible. You think a 350Z coupe get noticed? Drop the top on a convertible Z and drive though a town. It gets noticed every bit as much, and sometimes I think even more so, as in the summer people just look at every convertible - and when they see an "unusual" one, they just plain stare at them. With the roof down, you also feel exposed to all this attention. Which may or may not be to your liking. A reason we started to look at coupes, was not just because of Tracy burning easily, but also that although the convertible with its roof down looks gorgeous, with the roof up (which ours was most of the time) it just doesnt look the same to us. And if we are honest, it never did, we just never admitted to ourselves that we thought the coupe looked better for the majority of the year (the wet months). From a personal point of view as a bloke, I never really felt comfortable driving it with the top down. Although it was enjoyable and put a great big smile on my face, I always got the feeling that somehow it was a "girls" car. Maybe that was just me being self concious, and I dont mean to offend any blokes who own roadsters, but thats always how I felt when driving the car alone. With Tracy as a passenger it was slightly different as I assumed people would just think I was doing the kind deed and driving my missus around in "her" car. Performance wise I have certainly noticed the difference, or I beleive I have. The coupe feels more nimble somehow. But, I have moved from 280bhp and 1635kg, to 300bhp and 1535kg or thereabouts - which means a change from about 170bhp/ton to 195bhp/ton. The noise in the cabin of the coupe from the exhaust is substantially louder than that of the roadster - in the main this will be because of the exhaust fitted to our coupe, but not all of it can be attributed to that. As above, there is a lot more room for the sound to reverberate in on the coupe. As for wind noise with the roof up. Its no worse than my MK4 golf. You can easily have conversations just as easy in the roadster as the coupe at legal motorway speeds. Roof down, it gets a bit more noisy, but not as much as you would imagine, and its certainly better at deflecting the wind than older design roadster cars. Practicality. Not that much in it, but the coupe is easier to access. If you are aware of the roadsters "Tardis" feature, then you can almost double the boot space in the roadster, though Im fairly certain its not advised, and you can only drive with the roof up while utilising the "tardis". In short: Would I have a roadster again? Yes. Why did we swap the roadster for the coupe then? It just felt right for us - if I had the money I would have one of each ina heartbeat. Is the wind noise bad? No. Is it as practical? No. But its not a mile off. Whats visibility like? Out of the rear window its actually better, but you have no quarterlights. So checking blind spots requires more attention. My advice would be to try and get one on extended test drive and see how it feels for you - drive it for a day with the roof down and see if you can deal with how exposed you may feel. Then drive it with the roof up for a day and see if you are still as happy with the shape and the more enclosed feel in the cabin. Its all personal opinion and how you feel in the car, if you can find the right car at the right price, its not that much to swap, and if you dont like it come the winter, its not that much to swap back again next spring. Money doesnt grow on trees though, so I would try and get the drives and really see how you feel about it.

I think that may be me having a play. Yellow one 4 from the end.

That was Jonathan's Dukes of Hazard horn. I almost doubled up laughing when he signaled the arrival of the missing Z's by sounding that as he rounded the corner. Pure comedy timing that was.

Hmm - first attempt at this, I may be able to do better................

Excellent video

The problem is I dont have enough overlap on the pics, so none of the software is capable at the moment. Im going to take a load of stills from the digital video footage and hopefully will have more success that way.

Nice to see we got noticed. I didnt see anyone drop their ice cream, or walk into a lamp post this time though