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New Models
FIRST DRIVE: Nissan 370Z
Trying out the new – and, yes, improved – Z car on Nissan's German/Japanese test track.
Autocar staff  | http://www.autocar.co.uk  |  Posted December 11, 2008   Hokkaido, Japan
New Z’s shorter, squatter stance has not met with universal approval . (Autocar photo)

So there we are, on a bus heading into Nissan’s Hokkaido test track. It looks like any other test track, really – only it’s bigger, tidier and further away.

Then the bus swings off the road at a checkpoint, through a parking lot, and back onto the same road 50 yards further down, only something isn’t quite right. We are on the European side of the road, and all of the road signs – with real place names – are German. My colleagues and I look at each other, slightly bewildered. We are all a bit jet-lagged, true, but did that just happen? Curious folk, the Japanese.

I am at Nissan’s German/Japanese test track to drive the new 370Z. Looks good, doesn’t it? Or is it me? Ever since spy pics appeared, the Internet motoring forums have been awash with chatter about the Nissan’s replacement for the 350Z, which is on sale in Japan now and due to arrive in U.S. showrooms next month.

And the verdict is? Not overwhelmingly positive. Reading the threads is like listening to a teenager: “It’s fine”, “It’s OK”, “I mean, like, it’s all right, but… meh”.

Curious. I think it’s as desirable as $30k motordom gets. The 370 takes all that was good about the 350Z, dumps the bits that didn’t work and amplifies the rest by about 15 percent. “We asked every [Nissan] designer to think about the next Z,” George Yanaka, chief designer of the 370Z project, tells me before my confusing bus journey. “A hundred designers from every Nissan design center – London, the U.S., Japan – entered designs. They were all unique, but all had the same DNA.”

The result, he says, is “a super-evolution” of the 350Z. “There’s an obvious power concentration on the driven wheels,” he argues. “Tough body surfacing. A dynamic feel even in the detailing.”

So the new Z is more muscular, shorter of length (4250mm rather than 4315mm) and, at 2550mm, 100mm shorter in the wheelbase than the 350Z. It’s wider and a smidge lower than before, too. The front lights draw more longingly backwards, the awkward, flat, sedan-like rear deck has mostly gone. The rear wheel arches are more beefcakey. What’s not to like?

In its engineering the 370Z is a super-evolution, too. The engine, gearbox, passenger layout and drivetrain are all as before, which is just as well. As a front-engined, two-seat, rear-drive coupe, the 350Z is one of the most gloriously friendly and adjustable rear-drive sports cars of the past 20 years.
Engine grows to 3.7 liters for a peaky 326hp. (Autocar photo)

Like the styling, though, everything in the engineering has been turned up by 15 or 20 percent. The new engine is of 3.7 liters rather than 3.5, but it’s still a V6 whose peak power comes refreshingly near the top of the rev range. The 350Z made its 309hp peak at 6800rpm with 264lb ft at 4800rpm. The 370Z produces 326hp at 7000rpm and 269lb ft at 5000rpm.

That is, as Nissan’s engineers tell us, a “big jump” for the Z’s performance, especially given that the weight remains unchanged. Or thereabouts. It’s hard to say exactly. Use of high-tensile steels and aluminum (the doors, hood and tailgate) means that Nissan has a shell that’s 238 lbs lighter than it would have been were it made like the last one.

But with greater use of soundproofing, safety features and higher-grade interior materials, the weight is about the same. That means a higher power-to-weight ratio than a Porsche Cayman, which makes 187hp for every ton. The Z will make 200hp.

The figures suggest it’s fast, then? Nothing’s published yet. Nissan’s engineers pretend they weren’t that bothered before telling us they’d done a few 0-62mph starts earlier in the day, timing them each at around five seconds. But it’ll probably go quicker still, they say (which I’d doubt) while the seven-speed auto will match the manual. Top speed is limited to 155mph.

Does that mean the Z is going to be a softer, more rounded companion? You’d hope not. Nissan has the Infiniti G37 Coupe for that, after all, and Nissan is still targeting the tough guys in this sector: BMW Z4 Coupe, Porsche Cayman and perhaps the Mazda RX-8. Not the Audi TT, curiously; even in S spec. “We don’t consider the TT a rival,” an engineer tells us. “Customers don’t either. They don’t cross-shop with the TT.” Nissan sees the Z as a proper “guy’s car” and the TT as, er, not one. Not sure I buy that, but there you go.

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