"He was definitely a crack-head or something..." recalls Jennifer Jar, of one warm spring morning in 2007, when she found herself in a seedy little second-hand shop in the wrong part of Miami's warehouse district, alone, with $19K in her pocket. "He was really nervous, and definitely seemed like he was into something shady. I was afraid to ask what." She'd never been to Miami. She knew nothing about the man she'd come to see, and nobody knew she was there. "And as soon as he led me into the back room," she continues, "I remember thinking `what the hell did I get myself into?'"
Before her, buried under miles of dust, used toys and antique furniture, sat something she'd only seen in magazines, her dreams, and as of the day before, crappy cell phone pictures. "But it was disgusting," she rants, "it looked like a dog had been living in it for months; the interior was all scratched up, the dash was cracked, all the seats were torn and ruined..." she goes on, "and there was this horrible, unpainted, combat-style body kit screwed onto it." She goes on, "The paint was f-ed, and it was wrecked. It looked nothing like it did in the photos." And then, after a pause and a half-cocked grin, "But it was exactly what I wanted."
Rewind a few years, and we find our girl behind the wheel of a turbo Integra GSR, a car she bought, built and beat all the boys with at the drags after school. It was right before the F&F first hit screens, and a late-model modified import roaming the streets of Plano, TX wasn't exactly commonplace. Even less so, was one built with high-end Japanese aftermarket parts, without fluorescent paint or Lambo doors. "It was definitely ahead of its time," she explains, "it was my daily driver for years until I got tired of it... after that, I was ready for something new." The following few years saw her part out what was left of the DC2, while focusing her efforts on finding something even rarer. "The more I researched the Japanese market, the more I decided I wanted something no one around here had ever seen," she explains, "But at the same time, I wanted something that was reliable and I could drive everyday without issues." The S15 was one of her favorite cars since its release, and she found that its parts interchange with other Nissan cars here in the states made it a practical commuter. "Plus, it was less expensive and more low-key than the Skyline, which everyone was after," she adds.
Her biggest challenge was encountered early-on. "The more I looked into importing a car and legalizing it for street use, the more I realized it was impossible," she explains. "To clear customs, any car coming into the U.S. has to be brought in by a certified importer." And if that's not enough, "On a federal level, unless a certain model of car has been crash tested and modified to meet U.S. safety standards, it can never be legally registered under its model name for highway use. And since no company has done that with the S15, they have to be given a title at the state level, under a kit- or custom-car loophole of some kind." It gets worse, "Most states only give out a few of these registrations each year, so the chances of getting one are very small." Rather than risk her investment getting confiscated in customs, or impounded and destroyed after she was finished building it, Jen searched for pre-registered S15s in the country. It took months. Some cars had been imported in two halves; others were completely gutted, illegally VIN tagged and registered as reconstructed 240SXs. But most were already built as race or show cars and had never been titled at all. And then one day, she struck gold. "It was a little rougher than I would've liked," she begins, modestly, "but registered, titled, and ready to go. I bought it that day, and drove it back to Virginia to get started."