I have always admired Nissan Zs from afar... as an automotive enthusiast with an interest in a wide range of things, even if mostly just 'academically', and not really having had an opportunity to enjoy them directly.
The S30 early cars are beautiful classics that actually reportedly drive well, and are reliable, and used to be somewhat affordable.
I read and was interested in it's lineage, about how Yamaha worked up a sports car project with Nissan and pitched it to them, for a japanese sports car to emulate the europeans, but bring the cars to an affordable price point to a reconstructed Japan, as well as for export, as well as making them reliable, and thus more attainable and enjoyable than the likes of Aston Martin, Jaguar, Mercedes Benz, and BMW inline-6 front-engined sports cars that were generally both more expensive, and some had reliability quirks.
Nissan ultimately declined Yamaha's specifics, but ended up keeping the over-arching themes and traits, and made the slightly simpler S30 Fairlady Z in-house with an L-series engine, instead of Yamaha's twin-cam 2-liter engine, and a more attainable price.
Yamaha instead pitched the project to Toyota, which became the 2000GT. Then, Nissan put their 2-liter DOHC Prince engine from the GT-R into the Fairlady, making the 432, with a 4-speed manual, 3 dual-throat side-draft carburetors, and 2 overhead cams.
The S30 grew in both engine size, and an optional 2+2 configuration, and ultimately the S130 280ZX replaced the outgoing S30 280Z... with the X denoting a bit more of a touring focus, and added amenities, as well as a 5-speed manual gearbox, and other upgrades, and eventually turbocharging.
Z31 300ZX came in as a clean sheet 1980s wedge design, with a V6 instead of an inline, and again, optional turbo, and optional longer wheelbase 2+2... as a step up from the S-chassis Silvia, more performance oriented than the Laurel or Skyline, save the GT-S and GT-R.
Z32 ushered in Nissan's entry into the 90s era boom economy automotive rush, to compete with the Mark III and then IV Supra, the FC and then FD-3S RX-7, Mitsubishi's 3000GT and Dodge Stealth clone, Porsche's 944 Turbo, 968, and 928 touring coupes, and trying to appeal to younger buyers than the aging C4 Corvette, or less lightweight Mercedes SL, and BMW 6-series.
Arguably Z32 was an automotive icon from it's debut... and one of the hallmarks of 1990s automotive design and one of the last clean, modern, and entirely original automotive designs. Not a throwback, but a styling statement entirely on it's own merits. Everything since has been influenced by looking to the past, and restricted by more and more regulation that has significant impacts on automotive design.
Unfortunately like most others, it didn't survive the economic and social automotive market trends of the mid- to late-90s, with the exchange rate of the Yen to the dollar making imported cars prohibitively expensive, and CAFE regulations pushing the sharp rise of light-truck classified SUVs to shift fleet averages toward less regulatory costs.
Nissan bounced back like a few other companies did to bring their coupe nameplates back in the early 2000s as monetary policies eased, and purchasing increased with less expensive debt... and their bounce-back was the Z33 Nissan 350Z, platform shared with the Infiniti G-series, and even FX-series, and translated to the Z34 370Z in 2009, which brings us up to more recent history, toward current events.
I like the values that Nissan has had in the past with a focus on engineering quality and enthusiasm for mainstream people who want something that is interesting and well built. Z was the flagship of that ethos.
Unfortunately they have wandered from that a few times and come back to it... including very recently. I genuinely hope this is another true return to that ethos, and not an attempt that falls short.
If so, my interest might very well become more direct than academic, as a potential owner.
