David Vissers’ 1994 Z26 3100 Auto
What a lovely shade of Aqua to brighten up our December! Here’s some more from David about his Beretta and some bonus photos!
My girlfriend and I used to have a ’94 base model in Bright Aqua Metallic that we fell in love with. It was passed down to us from my father. It was the coolest and most resilient little car either of us have ever owned.
Unfortunately, it was a Wisconsin daily driver for a decade before we got it, so the body was rusting apart pretty bad and we had decided to just drive it until the drivetrain began experiencing issues as well. In winter of ’19, the lower intake gasket failed for the 3rd time (that darn 3100! 😆) and we decided to park it. The plan was to rebuild the engine and trans then move it to a new body when we found one. Unfortunately when we moved in the following spring, we didn’t have the space to store it in the condition it was in and it was sent to the scrapyard.
We had intended to restore a Z26 so we had saved the good parts from our first Beretta and had also bought extra Z26 parts during the time that we owned it. So when we decided to start searching for another one, we were absolutely amazed when we found this Z26 in the exact same color for sale within the community. We felt that after losing our previous Beretta the way we did, it was destiny to come across another in the same color and same year as the one we owned; hence how this Z26 obtained her new name: Destinee!
When we bought her, she was pretty neglected so I spent the summer of 2020 staying socially distanced and fixing up our new Z26. I got her cleaned out, new seals, and a fresh tune-up to get her capable of being a summer driver once more.
As soon as I have the space to do the needed body repair, I plan to pull the engine and transmission and rebuild them both (may do a top end conversion to the 3400 but haven’t decided yet). I will be replacing the Z26 front seats with those from a Mini Cooper and reupholstering the rear seat to match.
As for the body, I plan to repaint the car Majestic Amethyst Metallic with black Baldwin Motion striping. I plan on keeping the Z26 body kit but I will probably be switching out the grille, hood, and spoiler.
