Nissan 350Z Review

It took Nissan a while to rediscover its 'Z' heritage - seven years in fact, but someone must have looked at the product line more than four years ago and realised that with the demise of the 200SX there was no high performance Nissan sports car and wouldn't it be a nice idea to go back to the basics and revisit the 240Z?

The result was the 350Z in 2003, and it was a stunning sports car, and absolute racer of a vehicle. The only downside was a ride quality that suggested it would be a wise financial move to marry a chiropractor. Now the original 240Z eventually grew, Elvis-wise, into a bloated caricature of the original sporty concept, and for this facelft model of the 350Z there's a risk that the same could happen.

First impressions are good though, because that bulge in the bonnet covers an uprated VQ35HR 3.5 litre V6, now producing seven more kilowatts for a total of 230kW. Torque has improved too, from 352 to 358 Newton metres. The six speed gearbox is still as accurate as an Olympic sharpshooter. And you still can't see anything through the letterbox rear windscreen.

As I said before, the original 350Z was a real bone shaker of a machine, but this one has a completely new nature. There's very little sharp jolting whenever you run over anything thicker than a human hair, and it's quite possible to get out of the car after a long journey feeling refreshed, rather than if you had just finished a stint at Le Mans.

Is this a sign that the 350Z is going soft, just like the original Z cars? Thankfully not, as the handling is just as good as ever, with road grip that approaches that of a limpet, and agility that allows you to deftly pitch the car into a corner and feel the car reacting beneath you, talking back to you.

The extra power from the engine makes overtaking an exercise in merely flexing your right foot a little, as there's plenty of torque spread across the rev range. Work the gearbox though, and you've got a car that punches harder than Evander Hollyfield between corners, and thanks to the Brembo brakes, there's always enough stopping power to slow you for the next corner, with no fade and predictable performance every time.

This is a car built specifically to cover a lot of ground very quickly, and if you're only using it to pose as you drive through the city you've completely missed the point of this car.

Stop the posing, turn the stability control off, and you get a car that will spin its rear wheels quite willingly and hang the tail out in a good old traditional power slide. None of the magic of the original has been lost in this new iteration, and it has even been improved.

Retained also is the interior, which is the greatest down-point of the 350Z. It seems all the development money went into performance, because once sitting in the heavily side bolstered driver's seat you are faced with acres of hard plastic trim.

It's not unattractive, and indeed it all looks pretty purposeful, but a bit of soft touch trim here and there would improve the cabin no end. And why is there a cassette opening in the dashboard? These days a slot for an MP3 player would be much more appropriate. I really hope that Nissan hasn't included the cassette player because they think the buyer demographic is so old they still believe in good old magnetic media and not those new fangled 'Pod' things.

At least the ergonomics are spot on, with the instruments moving with the steering column so you can see them no matter where the wheel is, and the gearlever sits close enough for quick gearchanges.

You know this is a car for driving when the acronyms for the car almost outweigh the rest of the spec of the car. In this case you get VDC, TCS, ABS, BA, and EBD. They are, in order, Vehicle Dynamic Control, Traction Control System, ABS, Brake Assist, and Electronic Brake Distribution.

Then there's the dual and side front airbags, curtain airbags, Nissan Anti-Theft System immobiliser, Xenon headlights, Bose 240-watt audio system with 6 in-dash CD stack, seven Bose Speakers including a 10 inch subwoofer, steering wheel audio and cruise control switches, climate control air con, leather-wrapped steering wheel, gear lever knob and handbrake lever.

It seems that the future of the 350Z is pretty much safe, at least in terms of performance. Now, we need Nissan to get to work on the interior.