Some of my earliest memories of a car are from the passenger seat of my mom's red 240Z in Hawaii. I was very young then, hardly tall enough to see over the hood. But I remember everything. The smell of the seats. The fuel in the air. The sound of the engine screaming as my mom ripped through the gears on the back roads. The way the car moved underneath us. The way it felt alive. It was visceral. Raw. Loud. A little scary. Completely unforgettable.
I did not know it at the time, but that car planted something in me. It was not just a ride in an old Datsun. It was one of those early, strange, sensory memories that stay buried in your nervous system. You do not fully understand it as a kid. You just feel it. Years later, you realize it was the beginning of something. For me, that red 240Z helped start a lifelong love affair with cars.
My name is Ash Thorp. I am a designer, director, artist, automotive designer, and lifelong car obsessive. I have been fortunate to build a career around design, film, imagination, and machines. I designed the latest Batmobile for Matt Reeves' The Batman, a project where cinema, function, emotion, and automotive design all had to work together in a very real way. I am also one half of Make Haste Corp, an automotive design consultancy I co-founded with my close friend and creative partner Carlos "colorsponge" Pecino. That part of my life has taught me a lot about cars as objects of emotion and storytelling. Sometimes that work begins as an idea. Sometimes it becomes real metal, rubber, heat, noise, and consequence. Make Haste has real-world builds in motion as well, and I hope to speak more about that later in this journey.
But this Z is different. This one is not a client project or a film vehicle. It is not something I am designing from a safe distance. This one is personal.
Since that early memory in Hawaii, I have been fortunate to own, modify, and enjoy many JDM and European classic cars. Cars like the NSX, S2000, Subaru STIs, Lancer Evos, E30s, and others have all taught me different things about driving, design, feel, and character. But somehow, I never built an S30.
It was always on the list, always quietly waiting in the back of my mind. I knew I wanted one, but I also knew it was not going to be casual for me. If I ever got an S30, I wanted to pour myself into it and make it into something deeply personal. And I knew I was not ready yet. I needed time. I needed patience. I needed to acquire new skills. I needed to get to a place in life where I could take on the project with the respect it deserved. So I waited. And waited.
Then one day I woke up and thought, I think it is time for me to have a Z. I can be pretty impulsive when something locks into my mind, so once the thought arrived, I started searching. Sadly for me, the prices of these old cars had doubled from when I first started looking a few years back. I felt like if I waited much longer, the dream might start drifting out of reach.
I looked at clean restored cars. I looked at halfway-built projects. I looked at cars that were little more than bare shells. Pretty quickly, I knew I did not want a perfectly finished version. As beautiful as those cars can be, buying one would have robbed me of the part I wanted most: the journey. I wanted the build to be a lesson. I wanted it to be a process of growth and discovery. I wanted to be challenged by it. I wanted to learn the car from the inside out and feel connected to the decisions, the mistakes, the fixes, and the small victories. A finished car would have skipped too many of the chapters I was most interested in reading.
I have always felt that certain things find you at the right time in your life. Your spouse. Your best friend. A teacher. A place. Sometimes even a car. In many ways, I feel like this Z found me. I had no intention of buying one in such rough condition. But the more I looked at this car, the more it made sense. It was never going to be a perfect numbers-matching collector car, and that was not what I wanted anyway. I wanted decent bones, history, and enough openness to make it my own. This car felt like a blank canvas.
I found it on Facebook Marketplace and started talking with the owner at the time. He was a super nice guy who had built the car in his garage by hand and saved it from the ground up. From what I understand, the car had been abandoned out in Arizona for nearly 10 years before the previous owner bought it from his neighbor and started bringing it back to life one piece at a time. That part of the story mattered to me.
This was not some perfectly preserved car waiting under a cover. It had already been forgotten, found, revived, worked on, and brought back into motion. The previous owner built it up as a fun track toy for autocross, but due to rules and regulations, he eventually needed a clean painted car. That is when this Z started to sit again. Like so many builds, life came in. After years of going through the car, rebuilding the L28 engine, gathering parts, and getting it to a certain point, the project found its way to the back burner. Anyone who has taken on a project car understands that part. Even the best intentions can get parked for a while. That is where I came in.
When I saw the car, I knew it had potential. It had some of the right parts. It had a story. It had been saved once already. It was rough, yes, and from my perspective it needed a total reset in intention, but that excited me. I did not see a problem. I saw an adventure.
After we agreed on a price, I talked it over with my wife. We set a total budget for the build, and then I headed out to Arizona in my Raptor to pick it up. There were a lot of firsts in that trip. I had never towed a vehicle before. I had never gone out of state to buy a car that was essentially sight unseen. It was a mix of excitement, nerves, blind optimism, and probably a little questionable judgment. But that is part of what makes these things memorable.
After 12 hours on the road, I finally brought it home. And the moment I saw it in person, the car named itself. I have never really named any of my previous cars, but this one was different. I am a big movie buff, and one of my all-time favorite films is Alien. I have always loved Sigourney Weaver's character, Ripley. She is strong, resourceful, rough around the edges, and somehow finds a way to survive no matter what gets thrown at her. That felt right.
This Z had survived. It had been abandoned, revived, used, parked, and then found again. It was rough. It was imperfect. It had scars. But it had something in it. A will to continue.
So, world, I would like to introduce you to my 1975 Datsun 280Z, also known as Ripley, also known as THE ALT Z.
This project is my way of reconnecting with that early memory in Hawaii. It is my way of honoring the red 240Z my mom drove and the feeling it gave me as a kid. It is also my way of building new memories with my friends, my family, and the community around this car.
I have so many plans for this build. Too many, probably. There will be suspension work, brakes, wheels, tires, wiring, interior decisions, mechanical sorting, fabrication, mistakes, problem solving, and a mountain of small details. I want to modernize the car where it makes sense, but I do not want to erase what makes it special. The goal is to amplify what made me fall in love with it in the first place. I want this car to feel honest. Not perfect. Not precious. Not overbuilt to the point where I am afraid to drive it. I want it to have texture, show its age in the right ways, and preserve the rawness, simplicity, and connection that these cars are known for.
Most importantly, I have promised myself to be patient. That might sound simple, but for me it is probably one of the hardest parts. As a designer, I am used to seeing the end result in my head before the work is done. That can be useful, but it can also make you rush past the process. I do not want to do that here. A project like this is not just about the destination. It is about the countless small moments along the way. The first drive. The first broken bolt. The late nights. The small wins. The first time the car feels a little more like yours. I want to be present for all of it.
There is so much fun ahead. Upgrades, fine-tuning, problem solving, and slowly shaping this car into something that feels uniquely mine. But for now, I want to enjoy the simple pleasure of having it home. I want to drive it before it is perfect and learn what it is before deciding what it needs to become. I want to feel the raw connection to the road. I want to hear the L28 sing. I want to smell the fuel, feel the vibrations, and be reminded why this car entered my heart in the first place.
To be invited to share this journey with speedarticle is a true honor. This brand has always understood that cars are not just machines. They are stories. They are people. They are memories, places, families, risks, friendships, and dreams made physical. To have Ripley's story live here, in this space, means a lot to me.
This will be a monthly column documenting the build as it unfolds. Not just the clean final moments, but the messy middle too. The learning, the failures, the decisions, the doubt, the joy, and the people who help along the way. So with that said, welcome to the beginning of THE ALT Z. This is going to be an amazing journey, and I am truly thankful and honored to share it here on speedarticle. Let's begin.
This article first appeared in speedarticle Post 007
