This Borrowed Datsun Now Comes With American Power

What happens when you combined two beloved coupes from different sides of the globe? Awesomeness happens.

This Datsun 260Z is owned by Julian Hofmann, and was built by Eric Sanchez’s Light Speed and Fab LLC shop in New Salisbury, Indiana. There the classic Japanese styling was paired up with modern American horsepower for a ridiculously fun car. Corvette meets Z, sounds like a match made in heaven to us.

Eric Sanchez with his borrowed Nissan 260Z.

“It’s a C5R LS1 block with 14.5:1 compression, making 590 horsepower and 800 foot pounds of torque,” Sanchez said. “I cut the front end off for rust repair and it turned into this.”

The tube front end meant the car was only legal for the Ironman class, which Sanchez admitted was a tough class to be competitive in. The car was designed for fun under a variety of circumstances though, rather than just drag racing.

“It was built with a little bit of everything in mind. Julian loves drag racing and roll racing. He also wants to be able to take this car out and just drive it, go to different events, go get ice cream, that sort of deal.”

We’ve got to say, a Corvette motor fits pretty well into a Datsun!

Sanchez was given clear instructions if he was going to take his customer’s Datsun to Summit Midwest Drags last year. 

 “I said I would take it easy, and then the owner said I couldn’t borrow it anymore,” Sanchez said. “He told me if I was going to take it, I had to go for it!”

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A little rain, nothing that would phase this street car!

The Datsun was the first build to come out of Sanchez’s shop. He planned for one of his own cars to be at Summit Midwest Drags but he simply ran out of time.

“Julian is a really good friend, and I’m honored that he let me take his car.”

Sanchez finished the week with a best of 10.537/124.71mph.