Crimson Star's 1974 260Z 2+2

As I pulled out of the lineup and jumped the queue, I was happy that for once I wasn't going to miss the boat. "Gee," I thought, "it looks kinda full." The guy waved me on, so I drove onto the loading ramp.

"Stop!," he yelled. "Put your parking brake on, then get out." My wife and I looked at each other dubiously, but we did as he ordered. The Datsun was still on the loading ramp, except for the front wheels, which were on the ferry deck, behind the "DANGER: Keep Clear" yellow line.

With only about a foot of the ramp overlapping the rear deck of the ferry, he and several others jumped onto the ramp and pushed the Datsun forward just enough for the rear wheels to clear the ramp and land on the deck. They threw a safety rope over the back and placed chocks under the rear wheels, and the ferry set sail.

During the sailing, everybody admired the scenery. Everybody except us. We sat on the upper deck, watching the Datsun, just waiting for it to fall into the sea. To make a long story shorter, it didn't.

To make a shortened long story longer, if I had known then how unreliable that car would be, and if I had known then how outrageously expensive factory parts were, and if I had known then how incompetent the Datsun dealer's mechanics were, and if I had known then how uncooperative and downright rude the Datsun dealership owners were, and if I had know then that my lawyer was also the Datsun dealership owners' lawyer and would refuse to sue them on my behalf, then I certainly would have pulled the chocks, cut the rope, released the brakes and let that -expletive deleted- example of -expletive deleted- Nissan engineering fall into the sea, to rest forever among the ooze where it belonged!

This was the first and only car that I ever bought brand-spanking-new. It was the last sportscar that I ever bought. Never -expletive deleted- again!

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