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The Top Gear car review:Nissan 370Z
For:
Entertaining in an old-school muscle-car kind of wayAgainst:
Pricey to run, engine is rather dronyOverview
What is it?
The 370Z does ‘fast’ a bit differently to the other quick Nissan, the big, bad GT-R. That car is all about the tech – Internet-friendly acceleration enabled by a quick-shifting double-clutch gearbox and intelligent all-wheel drive, tyres filled with nitrogen because it’s more stable than air, and an engine hand-built in a hermetically-sealed room so the internals aren’t contaminated by the air you and I are forced to breathe every second of every hour of every day.
The 370Z – which has just been updated for 2018 – doesn’t have all-wheel drive, a double-clutch gearbox or an especially clever engine. This is the closest Nissan gets to barn-door engineering – a big, by modern standards, 3.7-litre V6 at the front, a six-speed manual (or seven-speed automatic) gearbox and two seats in the middle and rear-wheel drive at the back. In a world of all-wheel drive, 400bhp, £50,000 hot hatchbacks, the £30,000-odd, 328bhp Nissan is a bit of an anachronism.
It was launched almost 10 years ago and hasn’t really had a major update since. For 2018 Nissan’s changed the bumpers, light-clusters, wheels and given manual versions a ‘high performance’ clutch. The more powerful, more serious, more expensive Nismo is unchanged and still on sale.
Highlights from the range
Title | 0–62 | CO2 | MPG | BHP | Price |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
The fastest
3.7 V6 [344] Nismo 3dr |
5.2s | 276g/km | 26.6 | 344 | £38,180 |
The cheapest
3.7 V6 [328] 3dr |
5.3s | 274g/km | 26.6 | 328 | £27,680 |
The greenest
3.7 V6 [328] GT 3dr Auto |
5.6s | 271g/km | 26.9 | 328 | £34,180 |