Lifted Nissan 350Z Off Road Build: Z Car Gone Wild
When I was a kid, the coolest toy car in my garage was a red sports car with a black hood, bulge headlights, and beefy off-road tires. It was covered in racing livery and boasted a big sticker with the number “11” on the doors. Its make and model remained unknown to me until I spotted a photo of the same car in one of the car magazines many years after.
It turned out that it wasn’t a fantasy no-name car, but a precise scale model of a 1971 Datsun 240Z Rally Car that actually won the 1973 East African Safari off-road race. This light RWD sports car was completely reworked by the racing engineers and outfitted with a decent suspension lift, oversized off-road tires and hood-mounted driving lights to iluminate the path between the sand dunes.
The lifted Nissan 350Z off-road build that you see in the photos was submitted to us a couple of weeks ago by its owner Cameron Lashbrook. It brought up memories of the Safari Z-Car piled somewhere deep in my head, so I immediately agreed to feature it on Offroadium, even though the photos weren’t uncovering all the details of this build.
Though warm childhood memories aren’t the only reason for that. With a potent VQ35 3.5L NA engine, low weight, and attractive prices on the used car market, I believe these vehicles have great potential when it comes to starting a fun off-road/rally-style project.
List of Parts & Mods
Wheels
- Vision Wheels Window D rims
- Front 15X8 -29 offset
- Rear 15X10 -39 offset,
Tires
- Thunderer Tires Trac Grip Mud Terrain
- Front 31×10.5R15
- Rear 32×11.5R15
Suspension mods
- Custom Lift Spacers (rear has a 2-3/8” lift and front has a 1-3/4” lift)
- Stock struts, springs, and stock coilover front.
Other mods
- Trimmed fenders to accommodate the tires and suspension travel
- Custom Fender flares are based off of a Ripper style Saw blade
- Straight piped exhaust to a megaphone type exit
Q&A with the owner
What was the main goal of your project?
– Well I actually thought about doing this build about 10 years ago, there was another Z that was lifted and well it was pretty cool at the time, and I went to shop after shop to see how much it would cost to do it(not in the budget at the time). At that time I had no background in welding and fabrication.
– Now this year and with about 5-6years of welding and fabrication experience, and I’ve actually put the car on the market without the lift and didn’t have any bites on it. So I kinda said F-it I’m gonna do the lift, “go big” pretty much.
The vision changed from a offroad Z to the MADMAXZ. Got a lot of comments saying “I could see this in Madmax”.
– What inspired this build well after years of getting experience in welding I finally got the courage to do something different. The most difficult part was probably taking a gamble on what wheels would fit the Z, as 15” wheels technically don’t fit without the spacers and offsets.
– The most difficult part was probably taking a gamble on what wheels would fit the Z, as 15” wheels technically don’t fit without the spacers and offsets.
– The diy paint job and fender flares are probably what I love about my Z. The paint job is 90% authentic military colors except for the tan.
Conclusion
Cameron Lashbrook’s lifted Nissan 350Z project brilliantly demonstrates how a tired street car can be transformed into a fun-generating off-road machine, following in the footsteps of Nissan’s pioneering rally heritage.
Even though Porsche is the brand name now associated with old-school Safari off-road projects, Nissan built them long before it even became a thing. So if you have a beater Z that’s ended its career on the street scene, it might be a cool idea to chop the fenders, slap some A/Ts on it, and see what it’s capable of away from the pavement!
Watch the progress and find out more about this lifted 350Z by visiting the Instagram profile of the owner: @madmax_350z
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