NISSAN 300ZX

THE BIGGEST-SELLING SPORTS COUPE OF THE JAPANESE BUBBLE ERA SUCCEEDED FOR A REASON. IT WAS, AND IS, SOMETHING VERY SPECIAL

- ANDY ENRIGHT

BELIEVE IT or not, car manufacturers tend not to major on introspection. The sort of excoriatingly honest appraisal process that Nissan went through in the late 1980s is rare. Ferrari undertook such an exercise in self-flagellation when it realised the Honda NSX had made its 348 look rather halfbaked and Mercedes-Benz similarly realised that it needed to pull its lederhosen up when the Lexus LS400 whispered into its purview.

While both of these regenerations were prompted by rivals, the impetus behind Nissan's development of the 300ZX was, if anything, even harsher. Without much in the way of external prompting, it realised it had been selling mediocrity. It had become lazy, bloated on easy profits from undemanding buyers in boom years that would never last. So it changed.

The story behind this rebirth has a manic zeal to it, much of which was supplied by one man, Katsuo Yamada, the 300ZX's chief designer. Imagine a car designer today and you'll probably picture gym-toned men who look annoyingly well-groomed and tailored and who'll talk your ear off about nonsense like aspirational luxury or fundamental gravity. The role of the chief designer at Nissan was very different. That position meant you were the father of the car. No apologies for the patriarchal tone - that was just the way it was.

Yamada's remit was almost total. "Before it was very common for top management to be very widely responsible for new model decisions," he said in a Wheels feature at the launch of the car in 1989. "They only vaguely knew the market. Now the program manager can decide almost everything, not just design but pricing too. So if my Z car sells badly it is 100 percent my responsibility, for I can have no excuses."