Nissan 350Z

Road test

Rev the engine and you're likely to annoy passers-by by sucking bits of the immediate community into the small but noisy black hole just below the left headlight of the Nissan 350Z GT-S.

This is what the Nissan bods are calling a 'Saturday night special' - a car developed and created by Nissan's Cranfield Technical Centre just for the hell of it - the kind of car that appeals to my subversive tendencies.

The basic unit of transformation comes in the form of a supercharger bolted to the 350Z's 3.5-litre V6, bullworking a 280bhp engine into a 375bhp monster.

The brakes are uprated, the suspension reworked, exhaust tuned to a more fruity octave, the usual stuff, but nothing so extreme as to compromise the ability of this thing to actually drive.

We're not into 22-inch wheel territory here; the hoops are the same 18 inches as the standard car, albeit with wider, grippier tyres and some lovely smoke-gold lightweight magnesium rims. You can even switch out the supercharger via a button on the centre console, presumably for economy purposes.

The body kit is remarkably subtle, just a chin that's more intimate with the floor and a rear spoiler that could easily have been left off for my tastes, as well as three extra holes in the front of the thing - two to cool the respective front brakes and one for the induction apocalypse.

With this car's black paint job, the huge silver radiator and extra oil-cooler behind the front valance stand out in sharp relief, and if you fancy messing with a car that's making a weird sucking sound and requires all that cooling, it might be best to consider what might be under the bonnet before challenging it to the green-light drag.

It's testament to the stock 350Z that this car doesn't feel like a 'special'. It's been tied down a bit, but still manages to control hop-skip and bounce down UK back roads, despite having the kind of torque-laden delivery that sees in-gear acceleration times drop by scarcely believable margins.

Superchargers, it has to be said, rule. Rev out in third gear and you'll be into illegal speeds startlingly quickly. Get heavy handed and a pair of black lines will follow you from every junction. But it flows.

The GT-S has the performance without screwing with what makes the 350Z so good in the first place.

Apparently, Nissan has no plans to make the GT-S. I suggest that if we all write a strongly worded letter, the company might change its mind...

Tom Ford