The tales of Tom Cruise and his “need for speed” is quite well-documented. From performing his own stunts in Top Gun and Mission: Impossible to blasting around the streets on a Ducati Desmosedici RR MotoGP bike, there aren’t many things on wheels he hasn’t pushed to the limit. But not many people know that Maverick once had a crack at real-life motor racing.
As the story goes, as the new kid on the block, he met charismatic Hollywood icon (and racing enthusiast) Paul Newman on the set of Martin Scorsese’s The Colour of Money in 1986. The following year, Tom Cruise was donning his helmet and piloting a 1984 Nissan 300ZX for the Newman/Sharp Racing Team.
Tom Cruise went on to win four of his 16 races, and while the car didn’t exactly have collectors squabbling at the time, the car’s recent listing on bring a trailer certainly will.
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After a promising season with Tom Cruise at the wheel, the 300ZX led a miserable existence, sitting aimlessly in a scrapyard before the current owner rescued the Japanese cult car sometime in 2004.
The Nissan then underwent a bare-metal respray in 2006 and was finished in a replica of the red and blue Canon/Planters #70 livery as raced by Cruise. The bodywork includes all your 80s favourites: pop-up headlights, hood scoop, rear spoiler, and some retro 15″ alloys.
Beneath the surface, a 3.0-litre VG30E V6 has been tinkered with by Jim Wolf, including an ECU, camshafts, HKS ignition, stainless exhaust, MSA throttle body, and a lightweight flywheel, while the chassis receives Tokico springs shocks, Nismo sway bars, and some stainless-steel brake lines.
Everything inside the car is what you’d expect from an 80s race car – roll cage, bucket seats, extra gauges – but a working cassette deck is the feature that will get the mullets tingling.
The Nissan 300ZX formerly owned by Tom Cruise shows approximately 5,000 miles on the clock (800 since the rebuild) and looks ready to drift or display for the winning bidder.
