You Can Now Buy Brand-New Toyota AE86 and Datsun 240Z Body Shells for About $9,500If you've spent any time hunting for a clean Datsun 240Z or Toyota AE86, you already know how grim the inventory has gotten. Original shells for cars like the AE86 and 240Z are getting harder to locate every year.A factory in eastern China thinks it has part of the answer, and the price point is surprisingly reasonable.Jiangsu Juncheng Vehicle Industry Co., Ltd. in Baoying, China is producing brand-new body shells for some of the most beloved JDM and American classics, including the Toyota AE86, Datsun 240Z, Ford Bronco, Land Rover Defender, and a 1967 Ford Mustang.AdvertisementAdvertisementAccording to Hagerty's Larry Chen, who toured the facility, AE86 and 240Z bodies start at around $9,500, while the Mustang shell runs about $16,000.For context, rust is practically unavoidable on vehicles of this age, and a proper metal restoration can easily spiral into six-figure territory once the metalwork starts.The 240Z's rust problem is particularly severe.The car was released in the early 1970s when Nissan prioritized styling over corrosion protection, and the factory rust-proofing was minimal. The body design features dozens of small pockets and crevices where water collects but cannot escape.AdvertisementAdvertisementRust eats through the metal from the inside out, and the exterior paint can still look decent enough to convince a buyer they've found a clean example.At this point, a genuinely solid Z shell is a rare thing.Why Individual Panels Matter as Much as Full ShellsThe more practical story here isn't necessarily the complete body. It's not just large body parts Juncheng produces – the company also cuts dies and stamps the small brackets and fittings needed to recreate each car properly.That means a restorer dealing with a rotted-out rear quarter or a ruined floor pan can source a single replacement stamped from fresh steel, rather than hunting a parts car or paying a fabricator to make something from scratch.AdvertisementAdvertisementReplacement panels could keep real cars on the road without forcing owners to cut up rare survivors, and full shells give builders a path to build race cars or extreme restomods without destroying a clean original in the process.Juncheng reportedly handles around 95% of the production process in-house, from 3D-scanning original cars to creating stamping dies, pressing panels, coating parts, and assembling complete shells by hand. Each AE86 and 240Z body requires more than 300 individual dies just to produce one full shell.The operation also addresses one of the original cars' biggest weaknesses: one sample vehicle is completely disassembled and used as the reference, while a second example is kept intact to verify that reproduced parts match the originals.And unlike the uncoated steel from the factory in the 1980s, these new panels are galvanized before priming – a meaningful upgrade over how they originally left Japan.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe classic car side of the business actually got its start when Land Rover Defender owners came looking for replacement body panels.After producing enough Defender parts to cover essentially the whole car, Juncheng realized it could sell complete bodies – and subsequently built out its off-road lineup with the early Bronco, with more than 600 of those produced to date.A Juncheng-built Bronco body reportedly served as the foundation for a truck that sold for $400,000 at Barrett-Jackson – which suggests the market may be more interested in the quality of the finished build than the country of origin stamped on the panels.Juncheng is already looking beyond its current lineup, with future projects reportedly including the Porsche 964 and possibly even more ambitious classics.AdvertisementAdvertisementA 964 shell is a bigger deal than either of the Japanese cars. Clean examples of that generation of 911 regularly command significant money on their own. If Juncheng can deliver quality comparable to what the Bronco community has seen, the implications for 1980s and '90s enthusiast cars are substantial.The legal and philosophical questions around VINs and what actually constitutes a "restored" car are real, and they're not going away. But for an owner watching their 240Z disappear one rusted panel at a time, the ability to order a fresh quarter panel stamped from proper steel is a lifeline – not a threat to authenticity. These cars were daily drivers once, not museum pieces. Keeping them on the road in any form beats losing them to the elements.
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