It’s safe to say that even manufacturers that have had decades and decades’ worth of experience with performance cars don’t always hit the bullseye first time every time. This holds true for the Nissan 370Z Nismo which, upon its release in 2013, didn’t quite impress as much as it perhaps should have.
A leaner, meaner and fully-loaded version of the regular 370Z coupe, the Nismo gets all kinds of motorsport-inspired wizardry to sharpen its performance, including increased power, Nismo-tuned suspension and extra aero kit to refine the somewhat unruly 370Z.
However, perhaps Nissan took it a little on the hard side that the 370Z Nismo didn’t amaze the public, having added on further updates like new dampers to fine-tune the ride and tighter Recaro seats to try and up its game.
Power comes from a ridiculously brawny 339bhp 3.7-litre V6, hooked up to a heavy-duty six-speed manual gearbox with a rev-matching feature for perfect downshifts each and every time, plus a limited-slip differential.
Make no mistake about it, this is a quick car. Dump the clutch and push the throttle in and the V6 engine screams into life, baring its chest and pulling strongly all the way up the rev range. Given that it’s naturally aspirated it doesn’t suffer from any of the lag common to turbocharged engines and responsiveness is good, although it does begin to run out of puff from 5,200 revs or so onwards.
Flat-out, it’ll hit 62mph from a standing start in 5.2 seconds, before pulling all the way on to an electronically-limited 155mph top speed. Through corners, two pairs of big Bridgestone shoes means it grips well, while the suspension keeps things taut and controlled.
Steering likewise is nice and direct, with plenty of feedback and grippy Alcantara trim on the wheel. It has to be said though, that the steering wheel is probably the most attractive part of the cabin; the 370Z Nismo feels like a much older car than it actually is with naff interior plastics and a slightly gloomy appearance.
Still, at the least it does help to keep the car’s price down to a fairly reasonable £37,745, although given that the Porsche Cayman is dangerously close at only £3,000 more expensive, many drivers might find themselves torn between the Z and splurging a little extra on the Cayman.
The Recaro bucket seats are snug and supportive, but the side bolstering does feel a little on the tight side. I’m not large by anybody’s estimate, but the seats did still give me the impression of having my organs squeezed out like toothpaste from the tube every time I threw it into a corner a little too quickly.
You have to be pretty good with the throttle in order to find its sweet spot when cornering too. If you’re too timid with the accelerator it’ll understeer and pull wide round the apex, but stamping on the gas too hard will cause potentially problematic amounts of oversteer.
Compared with something like the GT-R it feels much, much rawer and you do have to be a bit more careful with it until you get used to the car; there’s no advanced four-wheel drive system to pull you out of problems here.
Novice drivers will get a kick out of the throttle-blip feature on the gearbox though, but if you’re a serious enthusiast and you enjoy heel-toe shifting, it can feel as though it slightly sucks the fun out of the whole experience.
Why not just pay someone to eat all the chocolate out of your Neapolitan ice cream while you’re at it? Luckily, though, you can disable it if you’d prefer to do things the old-school way, but to its credit the system does work seamlessly every time.
One other thing that’s slightly surprising about the gearbox is how darn heavy the shift is. “It feels racey,” is the way that one of Nissan’s engineers described it to us, but it can take a surprising amount of effort to move from one gear to the next if you’re not used to it.
Given that this is a performance car, it can really mess up your flow on a track, particularly when you want your shifts to be as sharp and as snappy as possible.
A hefty gearshift isn’t the only thing that feels at odds with the 370Z’s sleek look and racey appeal. Despite running on special lightweight 19-inch Rays alloy wheels and the fact that it comes with the same body stiffening processes as used on the absolutely atomic GT-R Nismo, you can’t help feel that the car comes across as a bit unwieldy.
Compared with the 350Z or any of the older Z cars, it feels like it’s traded some of that signature Japanese katana-sharp handling for a heavier, more imprecise feel. In short, it just feels a little bit too American muscle car.
In a way, that almost makes sense. The Yanks have had a Nismo version of the 370Z since 2009, and despite the fact that Nissan says this one has been specifically tuned for European roads, perhaps it hasn’t quite shed some of that US-spec approach just yet.
If all of this sounds a little bit negative, it’s not really. Yes, the 370Z Nismo can be hard to drive, but any enthusiast will tell you that this only makes it a lot more rewarding once you’ve finally got things dialled in.
The 370Z has quite a steep learning curve, particularly when compared to some other more accessible performance cars, but once you get a feel for it and learn its idiosyncrasies it can be fantastic. It fights you constantly, which makes driving fast more like a battle of wills between the car and its driver, but it’s a total old-school thrill ride.
Suddenly, the kickback from ragged surfaces feels like a game of cat and mouse as you try to direct the power of this wailing banshee of a car, and that understeer cleanly transitions into a controlled powerslide once you’ve worked up the courage to turn the over-eager traction control off.
Does this visceral, physical approach to motoring excuse the weak points of the 370Z Nismo? Not at all, but at the least it does make them much easier to swallow.
It’s a reminder of a time when cars were a lot more demanding of their drivers, and while the 370Z will probably be due an update in the near future, for the time being it still represents good clean fun in the most profane of ways.
