From $1,100 Craigslist Heap to Pikes Peak: Shawn Bassett's All-Carbon, Turbo LS 240Z

Most SEMA cars are finished when they roll onto the carpet. Shawn Bassett's (@shawnb26) 1972 Datsun 240Z was never going to be one of them. It debuted at SEMA in 2018 as a raw carbon home-garage build. On Nov. 5, 2026, we found it back in Las Vegas in the Air Lift Performance area, wearing No. 269 and Toyo Tires livery, with several Pikes Peak runs behind it.

In between, almost everything under the carbon changed. The 5.3-liter LS became a turbocharged 427. The S13-based suspension became a full tube chassis. And a car that had left its builder's garage only once before its first SEMA now has an official Pikes Peak time and its own downloadable spot in Forza Horizon 6.

An enormous heap for $1,100

Bassett did not come up through cars. Speedhunters' Trevor Ryan, who featured the Z in November 2018, wrote that Bassett raced sport bikes until a track day showed him he was quicker on four wheels. He bought a 1972 S30 on Craigslist for $1,100, about four years before that first SEMA, planning a simple restoration. Hoonigan's build series tells the same $1,100 origin.

Stripping it changed the plan. Speedhunters described what he found as "an enormous heap," and Bassett later told the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb that the car "should have been free." He kept the best of what was left and built nearly everything else himself, including the carbon bodywork, in an 800-square-foot home garage, according to Speedhunters.

The 2018 version, per Speedhunters, ran a 5.3-liter LS making about 450 hp through a built T56 six-speed and an S14 viscous limited-slip, on S13-based suspension with BC Racing coilovers. Bassett called it his "Mona Lisa" and insisted it was a "properly engineered race car," not a show build. The rest of the decade proved him right.

He also had plans that read like a wish list at the time. Speedhunters reported he wanted to run a few Global Time Attack rounds, go to Pikes Peak in 2019 and then take the car to the World Time Attack Challenge in Australia. Pikes Peak came a year later than that schedule, in 2020, and it has been the center of the program since.

The mountain

Bassett started running the Z in time attack and GridLife events in 2019, per his PPIHC driver profile. That same year he met Pikes Peak veteran Scott Birdsall at SEMA; Birdsall became a mentor, and Bassett crewed for him three times.

His own Pikes Peak record is a good lesson in how hard the mountain is. According to the PPIHC, he ran 13:08.904 in his 2020 debut. In 2021, weather cut the race short at the 16-mile marker. In 2024 a recurring low oil pressure warning stalled the car near the summit; the ECU had hit its limit of warning cancellations, and after a reset of about three minutes he drove it to the top anyway, recorded as a DNF.

For 2025, the PPIHC reported the car was rebuilt around aerodynamics and maximum downforce, with a new ABS brake package. The payoff showed up in 2026. The official PPIHC results list Bassett and the No. 269 1972 Datsun 240Z at 10:35.224, fifth in the Unlimited Production Based class and 26th overall. That is more than two and a half minutes quicker than his 2020 time.

It also gets close to the goal Bassett set publicly before the 2025 race: a "top 10 under 10," as he put it to the PPIHC. The top-ten-overall part is still ahead of him, but the clock is now about 35 seconds from ten minutes.

What's under the carbon now

Both the Attacking the Clock Racing (@attackingtheclockracing) build page and PASMAG's feature list the same core. The car sits on a full custom tube chassis with an FIA and Pikes Peak spec roll cage, wrapped in a full carbon widebody. ATC's own aero package adds a shark fin, a front splitter on custom rods, a flat bottom, a rear diffuser, canards and hood vents and louvers. An APR GT-2000 dual-element wing rides on chassis-mounted swan-neck mounts.

Power comes from a Texas Speed built 427 LS with a Dailey dry sump and a Garrett G42 turbo (PASMAG specifies a G42-1200) on a custom manifold, exiting through a Vibrant side exhaust. The team's build page rates it at 800 hp; PASMAG says 850. Either way, it is nearly twice what the 2018 car made. A Haltech Nexus R5 runs the engine, plus traction control and data, per PASMAG.

The transmission is a BMW M3 dual-clutch on a Domiworks adapter plate, shifted by paddles through an HTG Tuning controller, with an aluminum Driveshaft Shop driveshaft. Suspension is Moton three-way coilovers with SPL Parts components and FDF Fab rear knuckles, and steering is a DC Electronics electric-assist rack. Brakes are a StopTech Trophy kit. The wheels are WORK Meister L1s on Toyo slicks, the same Toyo Proxes sidewalls you can see in our photo.

Inside, PASMAG notes the race interior keeps the shape of the original 240Z dash, with a Haltech IC-7 display, a Sabelt seat, harness and steering wheel, an OBP pedal box and a Lifeline fire system. Radium handles the fuel system and CSF the radiator and intercooler. The build page also gives the car a nickname: Big Booty Judy. Looking at that rear quarter, it is hard to argue.

The car you can drive at home

For the sim and car game crowd, this one has a second life. Forza Horizon 6 sells it as a DLC car, listed as the 1972 Datsun #269 Attacking the Clock Racing 240Z "All Carbon Hill Climb Beast," with a June 4, 2026, release on its Steam store listing, and game database sites carry the same entry. A garage-built Z that started as a $1,100 Craigslist find now sits in the same game as factory hypercars.

The sim connection runs both ways. In his PPIHC driver profile, Bassett said he trains on a racing simulator set up to match his car and has memorized the 156 turns of the course. For a car that now lives in a video game, that is a fitting way to learn the mountain.

Why it matters

SEMA is full of cars built for the carpet. The No. 269 is the opposite: a car that showed up in 2018 half explained, went racing, broke, got rebuilt and came back faster every time. The carbon looked wild at its first SEMA. Eight years later, the ten-minute Pikes Peak time is what makes it serious.