When you are driving Nissan's flagship sports car, you are an instant celebrity. It's molten lines and breathtaking signature stop car guys and twittering females faster than Jennifer Love Hewitt on the cover of Rolling Stone.
"Is that the new Z?" they asked.
"Are those breasts real or filled with saline?" they thought.
It's basking in the glow of celebrity that defines this car more so than its startling ability to knife through corners and pull like an undertow on the straight. On the famed and dangerous Highway 2 we stroked this new Z. Its bulbous headlamps, its skinny navel, and its orange leather buckets had us intrigued.
Starting at dawn we blasted through the streets of cold, dark LA where we encountered the first of many celebrity sightings. At Starbucks.
"Hey, is that the new Z?" The gaper had run at least three city blocks along side us to ask that question. He was in no shape to do so.
"Yup. It's got the 3.5-liter V6 from the Maxima in it, 287 horses. Yeee Haaa!" we bleated.
He wheezed and put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. "It's sweet," he said.
With no one else in sight it was time for the "on ramp test" during which we were not disappointed. With a guttural roar accompanied the quick 0-60 time, we dabbed the clutch and spun the meaty six to its 6,200 rpm limit. For a car with a torque peak slightly south of 300 lb-ft we were surprised by the Z's unwillingness to give us even a small chirp from the tires. That was before we found the small switch next to the steering column marked "VDC" that we later read to be the Vehicle Dynamic Control. Was this the reason? We flipped it off at the first exit and tried again. Ah yes, a hard and satisfying patch of rubber was the reward. The day was just beginning.
On the freeway the car was a tank, quiet and smooth with no wind noise and no buzzing rattles. The buckets resisted the crooked spines of computer-desk-slave journalists and held us firmly in place as we snicked the ultra-short throw shifter into Sixth gear. At slightly less than 2,500 rpm we had a horizon of tach needle and a pre-dawn freeway. This was where this car belonged.
We entered the lesser canyons past the LA 'burbs and encountered light Saturday morning traffic. We were passing cars with the shifter in Sixth; plenty of torque to be had. A small lift before the traffic ahead would pull to the right and stare.
"Did she have liposuction?"
"Maybe."
A tip back into the throttle and the revs ascended as the traffic thinned. There would be no one in the mountains at this hour. It was just us and our silver super-model friend.
At the mouth of the Angeles Forest National Park there were warning signs galore that serve to scare the timid and empower the bold. The bold in this case were the hordes of sport-bike stuntmen that met at the base of the mountain to wager on their death sport. Five bones for the man who made it first to Lake Arrowhead through 75 miles of snaking canyon two-laners. We slowly cruised past the rows of burbling hyper-bikes.
It was on.
To say that the Z handles is not saying enough. We surmised that if there was skimping during the design of this car to get the base price to the surprisingly low $26k it wasn't in the vehicle handling or horsepower departments. When properly encouraged, the Z seemed capable of gaining and defending a position among the knee-dragging bullet jockeys to the end of the line. The turn-in was crisp, there was no hint of understeer (at legal speeds) and after the apex it was just a matter of point the car and go. Many of the turns didn't even require lifting off the throttle. We attribute this to a low center of gravity placed an equal distance from the tire locations, like a Formula 1 car.
On a short straight between sweepers the Z pulled hard in Third gear and delighted us with a burst of acceleration in the rev-band above 4,000 rpm where the chrome trumpeted exhaust cleared the woods of animals. Arrowhead Lake arrived quickly.
During lunch we inspected the accouterments and exposed the brushed aluminum of the rear strut-tower brace and the secret location of the battery under the hood before a gathering crowd. The interior is sports-car oriented. From the aggressive buckets it's easy to see the money was spent here. The gauge package is thrilling to look at and all the critical readings are positioned for the darting eye of a race driver. The stuff-stowage areas were plenty but a little on the Barbie's Dream Corvette plastic side and the shifter knob looked like aluminum but didn't get hot in direct sunlight. We suspected it was plastic as well. Flimsy interior aside, the car is buttoned up tight. LA County roads are pitted like an Afghan runway and we often dropped a tire into gullies but never heard a squeak.
The next stop was the dreaded 10 freeway from Arrowhead back to LA via the Seventh Circle of Hell a.k.a. Riverside and San Bernardino. Picture nothing and you've got it. We were returning to the one of the country's largest cities at 4 p.m. on Labor Day. Perfect for the bored-as-hell in apocalyptic heat test. As a commuter car the Z did better than we expected. It cooled us the best it could and didn't fell jerky or sluggish in the clutch happy world of 10 mph for four hours. It passed the test without stranding or complaints but felt as though it was designed for the open freeway.
There are seven different models for the new Z, a contrast to the original 1970 model. The package we had was the Touring Model that is available with both the 5-speed automatic and the must-have 6-speed manual. For the general public, the Touring Model is the top of the line. For cool people that know the difference between the 1970Z and the poser-inspired 1979 280ZX there is the Track Model. It slims down by skipping the Bose stereo, power seats, and butt warmers and goes for the kill with 18-inch tires, Brembo brakes and the full sports package of traction control and a limited slip differential. You'll want the Track Model because smoke-filled donuts are better than cream -filled. Right?