“Susie (ex 260Z owner) had a brain haemorrhage on the 25/5/1996 (18 years this year). She was 35 years old. It was as result of a congenital defect – one of the main arteries in her brain had a weakness that was never detected. The bleed was one of the biggest the Neurosurgeon had ever seen. It left her a spastic quadriplegic without speech yet fully cognitive. Simply put Susie is trapped in a body that doesn’t work. If you tell her a funny story she will laugh, tell her a sad story and she will cry. Susie was on a Neurodevelopmental program for approx 6 years and whilst there were many improvements her level of care remains 24hrs a day 7 days a week. Susie sold her 260Z when we bought our house, it was the deposit.
The medical profession recommended she go into a care institution and the children and i get on with our lives. I rejected their offer and bought Susie home to look after her. I asked her 10 questions re our children, our life, family allena cetc. (including her bank account pin number) Susie got them all right and i knew then she was fully cognitive (we used an alphabet board and she blinked out sentences). There was never doubt in my mind that the lights were on and there was someone home.
Susie loved her 260Z and enjoyed driving it immensely (me too!!) I am sure she will be thrilled to revisit 260Z period in her life.
Thank you for anything you can do to enrich her life.” – Steve
I’m not sure how the connection initially began, but Alan received the above message from Steve and organised for some guys from auszcar.com and the Z Car Club of Queensland to take their Z’s along to Susie’s house for a bit of “therapy”. The weather was terrible with light rain and storms threatening all day (you could just about hear the rust multiplying and spreading through the bodies of the old Z’s), but that didn’t stop 8 or so Z’s turning up to try and do something special for Susie. I was exhausted from an all day shoot the previous day and the constant drizzle didn’t help the shooting conditions but I thought it was worth documenting the day with whatever photos I could get.
