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Do you feel the need, the need for speed? Rad-era celebrity racing goodness could be yours.
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Be it Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Michael Fassbender or Patrick Dempsey, where there is motorsport you’ll often find movie stars.
And now you have the chance to pick up a set of wheels campaigned by Mr Movie Star himself, Tom Cruise.
What’s more, this particular 1984 Nissan 300ZX race car was prepared for Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) racing by Cruise’s co-star in the 1986 film Colour of Money, and actual racing driver, Paul Newman.
White with period-correct blue and red livery (and Planter’s Nuts sponsorship), the number-70 racer was built by the Newman-Sharp Racing firm to contest the 1987 SCCA series in the ‘Show Room Stock’ class.
We’ll level with you, we wanted to start this piece with “You want the boost? You can’t handle the boost!”… but the Nissan 300ZX in question is packing a non-turbo 3.0-litre V6, so here we are.
The motor has modified camshafts, headers and throttle body, plus the car uses an aftermarket HKS exhaust and ignition system.
There’s adjustable coil-over suspension and a roll cage, and we assume the seats in the relatively-standard interior can slide back and forth to accommodate drivers of differing heights…
The ‘Z31’-generation 300ZX was sold in Australia between 1984 and 1989, with the V6 enhanced with the addition of a turbocharger in 1986. This increased the output of this ‘VG30DE’ engine from 126kW to 155kW (under the new name VG30DET).
An example like this one (1984, manual) cost $27,505 before on-road costs locally when new.
Included with the sale are clippings from the time, noting Cruise was a regular ‘pointy end’ performer in the Nissan, with one noting he won his class and finished third overall in a field of 27 cars at a round at Daytona International Raceway in Florida. (Insert appropriate ‘drop the hammer’ quote from Days of Thunder here.)
Ironically, the car was saved from the scrapyard by the current owner, and has undergone a full restoration.
Unusually for a celebrity-owned (or driven) car, the Nissan is still very affordable. As we write this, bidding is at $US6700 ($AU10,000), but with seven days to go, and Tom Cruise’s star still very brightly in the sky, we imagine this will climb. Significantly.
But, while it’s cheap, why not throw a bid on it so you can regale future generations with the story of the time you nearly bought Tom Cruise’s race car. “Show me the money”, and all that.
Read more about James Ward 
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