More Info! A Walkaround - and a Sitdown - in the new Z Prototype
MARK VAUGHN
It’s comfortable, the clutch pedal and steering wheel felt great and the outside looks like... every Z ever made.
There’s a new Z in town. No, literally, they brought the yellow prototype that we’ve all seen in photos and invited select industry luminaries, and me, to have a look. If you ask, they even let you sit in it. So I did. It just increased my desire to drive the thing.
Even the old, or rather, current, Nissan 370Z is still a great and fun sports car, even though it’s been on the market since 2009, about the end of its longish life cycle even for a sports car. And crawling inside the driver’s seat of the new Z provided a reassuring sense that this icon will remain a sports car and not dilute itself off into the realm of the GT or, gawd-forbid, some generic “coupe.”
The opportunity came in Los Angeles, where the Z is on something of a media teaser tour. The day before I saw it the great racing photographer Larry Chen had spent a day shooting it all over the city, from downtown skyscrapers to the shop of Nissan Z driver Chris Forsberg, who has piloted one Z or another in Formula Drift almost since the beginning of that series.
“This is such an amazing-looking car,” Forsberg said in a handheld video review as he circled the yellow prototype in his shop. “It goes from the first-generation to takewaways from the current generation to the way they connect the rear taillights in the back., this third hit of color (the metal strip where the rain gutter used to be) that brings the glass from the front all the way down to the back, very cool little touches that scream first-gen but also give it it’s own look.”
Check out Forsberg’s walkaround video below.
My chance to poke around in it came just after sunrise in a studio in downtown L.A., a freethrow away from where the Lakers, who had just won another world championship, usually play, and a couple exits down the freeway from Dodger Stadium, where the Boys in Blue would normally play in a normal season, and who had also just captured another World Series. So L.A. was on something of a winning streak lately. I hoped the Z would be, too.
My guide would be Nissan’s Jonathan Buhler, who had gone from the product planning department to product communications specialist just because he loved the damn car so much. Buhler has a lifelong appreciation of Nissan Zs. His dad bought a first-gen 240Z before the young Buhler was even born, driving it around Southern California when he was stationed at Pt. Mugu Naval Air Station just north of Malibu.
“The Z is kind of the underlining topic of my life, it seems,” Buhler said. “Growing up, my dad had a '73 that he took me to daycare in for years. I fell in love with the car just because it was my dad's car. And he's had it since 1978. He bought it from the first owner up in Ojai when he was stationed at Pt. Mugu.”
His dad drove the '73 for 20 years, hauling the young Buhler around. In 1998 he parked the car, but Buhler spent countless hours inside it, pretending to drive, imagining what that experience would be like (just as I was doing) and in 2005 offered him the car. Buhler had to get over a fleeting Mustang obsession first – that was cured by purchasing a 1969 'Stang.
“It was a '69 coupe with the inline six and a manual transmission. But it wasn't anything to write home about. It just was plagued with rust that we didn't know about until we actually got it up on a lift.”
After that it was all Nissan Z. He and his dad restored the family ’73 Z over three years, finishing the project in 2008. After that he drove it all through high school and brought it with him when he went to college in Tennessee. Through a series of serendipities, he wound up working at Nissan two weeks after graduating college. Now his job is sharing his enthusiasm about the iconic sports car. Which brings us to Los Angeles looking down at the yellow Z you see here.
Has he driven the new car?
“Yes, actually, I've been the one moving this thing around the last several days here in the US and I've had the privilege to be able to use it for some photoshoots for some new assets that we'll be sharing here shortly."
The car isn’t just a roller, Buhler said it has a V6 twin-turbo engine underhood mated to a six-speed manual transmission.
“So the car, drivetrainwise, is pretty accurate. And, and quite honestly, it's a really great representation of what to expect here in the near future.”
What's it like to drive?
“Considering that I could only take it five miles an hour, exhilarating.”
Does it have the production suspension?
“All of those specs will be able to share with you in the future,” Buhler said. “Since this is a prototype, we're kind of just outlining the key aspects of the car with the engine and the drive train.”
The leading speculation has it getting the Infiniti Q60's 300-hp 3.0-liter V6 at launch, with the 565-hp 3.8-liter under the GT-R's hood coming at some later point.
The yellow color of the prototype looks different every time you see it. Here it appears less bright, alittle more faded. Other photos show it a strong yellow.