Zed's Not Dead

In Its 10th Year On Sale, Is The Nissan 370z’s Sharp New Price Point Enough To Keep It Competitive?

- Scott Newman

SPORTS CARS are the chameleons of the automotive world. Not because of their ability to blend in with their surroundings – most aim to do the exact opposite – but because of their unusually short lifespans. Chameleons tend to only live two or three years in the wild, which is typically the same amount of time it takes for sports car sales to fall off a cliff as buyers move on to the latest toy.

The Nissan 370Z is an exception. Just as a chameleon in captivity can live up to 10 years, this muscular rear-driver continues to slowly but surely leave showrooms, despite 2019 marking a decade since its introduction. As you’d expect, its popularity peaked early on with sales of 681 cars in 2009 and 745 in 2010, but it’s remained remarkably immune to the ravages of time, hovering around 400 sales per annum.

Traditionally, this continued interest has been achieved by a steady trickle of new updates: more power, revised styling, extra gadgets. Nissan has taken a different approach, leaving the car more or less as-is but gradually lowering the price. When the freshly fettled 370Z landed on Aussie shores in 2009, Nissan demanded $67,990 for the standard six-speed manual coupe. In 2018 dollars, that equates to around $80K, which makes the Z’s current $49,990 price tag somewhat of a bargain.

However, in the immortal words of 1990s knife salesman Tim Shaw: “But wait, there’s more”. Our test car is one of 50 N-Sport models, which further slashes the price to $48,490. It’s inspired by the Datsun 280ZX Black Gold edition, built to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Z-car in 1980; this isn’t a good start, as the 280ZX is widely regarded as the point the Z went off the rails, its weight ballooning and performance declining like the automotive equivalent of Elvis Presley’s later years.