You’ve heard “millennials don’t like to get their hands dirty” and “kids aren’t into cars anymore.” But don’t worry—hot rod culture is still alive, but today the greasy tattooed Danny Zuko types build stuff like this 1975 Datsun 280Z with a Nissan Skyline engine swap. And it’s fast, difficult to drive, and just the right amount of janky.

(: Professional drifter Chris Forsberg works with the car audio company Clarion and Donut Media to sell stuff. He built this car himself, for himself, and had it out on the Streets Of Willow track at Willow Springs for a video shoot. While that was going down, he let me take a couple laps before the throttle got stuck, the car overheated, and everyone ran away screaming.)

The 1970s were tough for car enthusiasts. Engines were choked in begrudging compliance with emissions rules and parched by stratospheric gas prices And oh, god, those early low-speed bumpers. Those things were so ugly it’s almost like automakers were intentionally flipping off the American people for demanding safer cars.

In retrospect, diving board bumpers aside, this era looks like a clear transitional phase between the rounded eggshell corners of the ’60s and severe angles of the ’80s.

Forsberg’s custom build accentuates that blended look even further.

I mean, right?

Forsberg’s Z feels a little too brash to be called “timeless.” But if you don’t know what you’re looking at, this sleek and slabby car with its bolded-on broadness seems more like something out of a parallel universe than any specific era of car design.

“I built the 280Z because I always wanted a first generation Z. Also, because I knew that I could push the limits of the build and still be street legal as a classic car,” Forsberg told me. “The toughest part of putting this thing together was doing all of the interior and exterior upgrades in the short amount of time. Carbon Signal made everything but then I still had to fit it all and have it look perfect and there was very little time before SEMA to get it all right.”

The confluence of classic lines with a heap of purposeful-looking bolt-ons and this unusual color gives this car an almost Mad Maxian flavor. It looks cobbled together, but faster for it. Meaner.

The driving experience is more of an acquired taste. But it is consistent with the way the car looks.

Having never driven a Datsun Z of this vintage, or a more modern Skyline like the one this car’s engine was heaved out of, I had exactly no idea what to expect when I got on the gas pedal out of the parking lot.

But I was pretty surprised and a little disappointed when I felt a big black hole of nothingness where I thought, for sure, there’d be horsepower.

As I gingerly rolled into the throttle, the car trotted along like a small dog at the end of a long walk. It coughed a little and worked its way up to a canter, but it wasn’t happy with me. Forsberg, sitting to my right, was laughing at my trepidation. “It’s a top-end car. Lay into it!”

His car, his rules, I guess.

Dumping a full boot into the gas pedal made the car snort, squeal and surge like a horse with a fresh brand on its butt. There was no lateral motion from the steamroller-sized rear tires at all, just a huge gulp of air which was immediately compressed into energy and expelled as raw speed.

Reeling the car in for the first corner, the brakes wanted to respond with the same binary behavior. A light touch of the pedal did nothing, a little more and your face was headed for the windshield.

The clutch was heavier than what’s in most modern Japanese cars, but not by as much as you might think. The shifter linkage was a blunt instrument though—crunchy, notchy, definitive about getting into gear. Shifting this thing was like putting an Autobot together. Ram, jam, ca-chunk.

I could sense the car’s true power, at those high RPMs where the turbo could sing. But I didn’t quite have the talent to exercise it. The energy was just out of my reach, but I could feel it start to bubble at the upper-middle of the tachometer’s range. Between the peaky engine and beefy transmission, yeah, I could imagine a braver pilot keeping the revs pegged and hanging the rear end to the outside of a corner.

When Forsberg and I rolled back into the pit after a couple casual runs around the Streets Of Willow, I could tell he was thinking the same thing. “Want me to show you a lap?”

Dude, yes.

After we’d cinched ourselves back into opposite seats, Forsberg wasted no time trying to make me sick. He hitched a lasso to that car’s powerband, somewhere north of 6,000 RPM, and we just hung the hell on.

By the time we were in the braking zone of the first corner I was already starting to think, well, this would be one of the cooler cars to die in.

Forsberg played a little whack-a-mole on the car’s pedals and turned the Z’s ten-inch wide rear tires into a pair of fog machines, making them try to pass the car’s mile-long hood as we slid around the first turn. Then he did something with the steering wheel and we were stepping out the other way, careening sideways around a second corner.

When he slowed down to cool the car off, I finally got the chance to look around and appreciate the interior. Like the outside, the car’s basic architecture is essentially preserved. It’s just been recovered and decorated with a few dangerous-looking devices, like that weapon of a handbrake protruding from the center console.

The doors and chunks of interior padding feel heavy and tough, kind of like those ugly bumpers I was just complaining about.

The feeling of clean cohesiveness we’ve come to expect fast-from-the-factory cars like today’s Nissan GT-R completely eludes Forsberg’s Z. While an M4 or 911 or even a high-end Mustang can be gently driven around town just as easily as they can step to speed, this Z sort of stumbles like a pre-animated Frankenstein until lightning strikes and then hoooly shit we’ve got a monster!

The Z is exactly what a tuner car should be: an extreme and focused machine that’s creatively executed and dialed into a specific driver’s desires. I hope my own project cars have as much personality as this Z when I’m done.

Want the whole spec sheet? Get ready to scroll:

RB25DET Engine and transmission

Carbon Signal G-Nose Carbon Body Kit

BRE Style Rear Wing

SSR MS-1 Wheels - 16x9 and 17x10

Hankook Tires - 225/50/16 and 255/40/17

Techno Toy Tuning Front and Rear Coilover Conversion

Techno Toy Tuning GTX2 Front Control Arm Package

Techno Toy Tuning Adjustable Rear Control Arm

Techno Toy Tuning Rear Sway Bar

Techno Toy Tuning Billet Front Hubs

Techno Toy Tuning Weld In Camber Plates

Techno Toy Tuning 3 Point Strut Tower Bar

Techno Toy Tuning Solid Pillow Mounts

Techno Toy Tuning Big Brake Kit

Techno Toy Tuning Complete R200 Rear Conversion

Wilwood 4 piston Brake Calipers

Wilwood Vented Rotors

Wilwood Brake Master Cylinder

Wilwood Clutch Master Cylinder

Wilwood Brake Proportioning Valve

Custom Stainless Steel Hardlines

Nissan R200 Differential with GKTech Billet Cover

ACT 6 puck clutch

Mishimoto M-Line Intercooler

Mishimoto Dual Pass Oil Cooler

Mishimoto Thermostatic Oil Block

Mishimoto Radiator

Custom Plenum Creations Carbon / Billet Intake Manifold

DOC Race V-Band Manifold

TiAL XONA Rotor 3071 with Stainless V-Band housing

TiAL QRJ Blow Off Valve

TiAL MV-R Wastegate

OCD Works T51R Turbo Mod

OCD Works Billet Valve Cover

Apexi Power FC D-Jetro

Radium Engineering Pulse Dampener

Radium Engineering Fuel Surge Tank

Deatschwerks 650 cc Top Feed Injectors

Deatschwerks 340 lph Fuel Pump

Odyssey PC1200 Battery

Custom 3-inch Stainless Exhaust

K&N Fuel Filter

AEM 4-inch Intake Filter

Custom Charge Piping

Sam’s Auto Land Paint

Carbon Signal Custom Dashboard

Speedhut Custom Gauge Kit

Carbon Signal Door Panels

Carbon Signal Bucket Seats

Carbon Signal Center Console

Clarion NX604 Navigation Unit

Clarion 6.5-inch Speakers

Techno Toy Tuning Harness Bar

Takata 4 Point Harnesses

Custom Electric Power Steering Column

Dapper Lighting Headlights and Taillights