If you’re a fan of Nissan‘s zippy little two-seater, you’d be forgiven for still feeling the effects of the past few years’ whiplash. Let’s recap for the uninitiated: The 370Z was withering on the vine, seemingly without a successor. Then, 2020 comes along and suddenly there are rumors of a new car sporting a throwback look. We were skeptical, but sure enough, Nissan found the resources to transform the 370Z into what is now simply the Z—a car that launched in 2023 (as a 2024 model)… followed almost immediately by a stop-sale impacting every model with an automatic transmission.
Yep, pretty wild ride. But things are finally settling down. Nissan just threw some updates at the Z—a refreshingly quick update for a car whose predecessor developed a penchant for languishing—and brought balance to the universe by reintroducing the manual gearbox in its high-performance Nismo model. The only downside? Nissan just converted the Z to an “order-only” model, meaning dealers won’t get allocations by default; they’ll have to ask for inventory. That means there won’t be as many sitting around to test-drive anymore.
The upside? If you want a Z, it should be easier to have one specced exactly the way you want, as dealers won’t be trying to foist undesirable configurations off on unsuspecting buyers just to clear them off the books. On top of that, Nissan is looking to capitalize on the Z’s heritage to help juice its U.S. brand image as it works to recover from its recent slump.
That means that the Z is going to get more attention from the company’s product planners than it did previously. Ponz Pandikuthira, a Nissan senior vice president and its chief product & planning officer for the Americas, told The Drive how he sees that unfolding:
“A lot of it is going to be heritage based, Pandikuthira said. “Go back to the authenticity of what Z was in the past. Create special editions that resonate with that heritage and keep that animated cycle plan.”
When Pandikuthira talks about animations, he means iterations—new model variants that can appeal to new buying subgroups without heavy mid-cycle investment from Nissan. It’s all part of a new attitude meant to stave off the torpor that allowed the previous Z to become a dated outlier:
“Don’t just build it and then walk away,” Pandikuthira put it succinctly.
This suggests that Pandikuthira is aware of the car’s lingering reputation for stagnation. Not this time, though. In fact, Nissan is already thinking about the next new Z.
“You’ll see a lot of that animation coming through special versions between now and say the next three years,” Pandikuthira said. “And then we’re actively talking about what that next generation will look like.”
That doesn’t mean a new Z will arrive in three years, mind you; that’s just when Pandikuthira expects earnest development to begin. After all, the Z isn’t the pinnacle of Nissan performance. That honor goes to the GT-R, which is currently AWOL and certainly a priority for the company’s engineers.
A new one is due in 2030. Hmm, that’s only a little more than three years from now. Coincidence?
“[The Z has] also got to make sense with what that next generation GTR will look like,” Pandikuthira said. “It’s got to slot in there below where a GTR would be.”
Hopefully we’ll find out what that means soon.
Got a news tip? Let us know at tips@thedrive!
www.thedrive.com
#Wont #Nissan
