Classic Car Owner's Parts Search Becomes Full-Time Genealogical Investigation

What began as a routine search for a passenger-side door handle for a 1972 Datsun 240Z has evolved into a multi-state genealogical investigation that has consumed more of the owner's time than the actual restoration. Ken Patina, 46, began searching for the correct Series I exterior door handle in January. Five months later, he has visited estate sales in three states, exchanged emails with a retired Datsun dealer in Tucson, and is currently corresponding with the widow of a man who may have owned the last new-old-stock handle in North America. "The reproduction handles are wrong," Patina explained. "The casting is different. The chrome weight is off. Anyone who knows Z-cars would spot it immediately. I need an original." Patina's search led him first to online Z-car forums, where a thread from 2018 mentioned a user named "ZedKing72" who claimed to have several NOS handles. ZedKing72's account has been inactive since 2020. Patina traced the username to a man in Albuquerque who had passed away in 2021. "His widow was very kind," Patina said. "She told me his garage was liquidated by his nephew, who sold everything at a swap meet in Phoenix. I drove to Phoenix and found the nephew, who remembers selling 'some chrome things' to a man in a cowboy hat. The trail went cold at the cowboy hat." Patina has since expanded his search to include Datsun junkyards in California and Oregon, Craigslist alerts in eleven states, and a standing offer on three forums that he describes as "generous but not desperate." His wife, who initially supported the restoration, has observed that the door handle search has now cost more in fuel and travel than the handle itself would cost if manufactured from scratch. "I could machine one," Patina admitted. "But it wouldn't be original. And if it's not original, what's the point? I might as well put a Toyota handle on it. I might as well not have a car." The Datsun remains in his garage with the passenger door permanently closed.