What is your email address?
What year did you join HRR?
2015
Do you have any other family members in HRR?
Kim Shemin – Wife
What would you like to share about yourself?
I am currently the secretary for the Music City AACA club in Nashville since its inception in 2014. I help organize and put on the KARS4KIDS show at the Tennessee Baptist Children’s Home in Brentwood in April, and am the lead for the Wheels for Meals show at the Bellevue United Methodist Church in Bellevue in April which raises funds for the church’s food bank program. We also do a fall show at the ELKS Lodge in Franklin in the fall as a benefit for GraceWorks Ministries. Any event we do must have a charitable or community assistance component.
I am a founding and still active member of the Middle Tennessee Z (Nissan/Datsun) club, which will do its fourth car show at Nissan North America Incorporated’s headquarters building in 2017. I played the lead role in organizing each of those shows with Nissan corporate’s representatives
I also belong to the Nashville Corvette Club, and the Battlefield Region AACA club in Williamson County, where I was club Secretary in 2013. I act as emcee for the awards at their October car show at The Factory in Franklin.
I am also the co-producer since 2016 of the KRIS KRINGLE KAR KLASSIC held in November at the Williamson County AgExpo Center in Franklin, put on in conjunction with the Williamson County Parks and Recreation Department to raise funds for their community programs.
Do you have any personal or favorite web sites?
Music City AACA: www.musiccityaaca.club
Our Datsun/Nissan Z car club website: www.middletennesseezclub.com
What vehicles do you currently own?
1971 Datsun 240Z
2013 Corvette Grand Sport
2014 Nissan Rogue (daughter’s car)
2014 Hyundai Elantra SE (the wife’s daily driver)
2016 Hyundai Equus Signature (my daily driver)
What has been your favorite car that you’ve owned?
The Datsun 240Z was my dream car since I was 12 years old. I just turned 60 in 2017.
AutoWeek magazine had the Peter Brock prepared John Morton driven BRE (Brock Racing Enterprises) #46 race car on their cover in 1969, and from that moment on, I had to have one! That was even before the production car really hit the US market.
I have a signed lithograph of that car and a signed diecast in my home office when I met both of those gentlemen at the International Z Car Convention in 2010 at the Nissan headquarters in Franklin, TN.
Do you have a car story to share?
How I obtained my 1971 Datsun 240Z in 1987…
I was working for the Gillette company at the time in Jacksonville, Florida selling their line of razor blades and cigarette lighters in south Georgia and north Florida, primarily to food and drug store chains. Late in 1986, the company decided to sell off the Cricket brand cigarette lighter business, and offered the sales force incentives to move out the remaining inventory. I did very well, and received my bonus check in June of 1987. I was on my way to the bank with the check and a deposit slip, when I stopped at a red light just before pulling into the bank. To my right, sitting on a VW dealer’s used car lot, was a 240Z with the word “MINT” across the windshield and $4995 below that. I pulled in, ended up talking to the owner who had consigned the car to the dealer, and called my wife an hour and a half later to tell her I never made it to the bank! The rest as they say is history!
I still own and love the car. We’ve had great fun, been to some great events, and made some great friends through the Z and car club community. It now has over 275,000 miles on the original motor, and I still get a thrill seeing it in the garage and on the road… to this day! It is as much a part of our family as my wife and daughter!
