Nissan expensive Sports Car
In a sense, driving the 2016 Nissan 370Z is like bumping into an old friend from the neighborhood. “Vinnie, you haven’t changed a bit!” For now at least, the 370Z does it the tried-and-true way, with a large-displacement, port-injected, naturally aspirated V-6—no turbocharged, supercharged, or electrified anything here. The 3.7-liter VQ37VHR six shared with the Infiniti Q50 and Q70 is very flexible and has ample torque over a wide rpm range. It’ll lug down to 1000 rpm under load in fifth or sixth gear without chugging and, when you light the fuse, provide a charge to 60 mph from rest in 5.1 seconds. That’s quick enough to out-drag the base Porsche Cayman (5.3 seconds).
But the gray is showing at the Z’s temples. The VQ gets grainy at higher revs and the sound (at least of the $30, 815 base 370Z we tested) isn’t very zoomy. Spend more for the Touring, Sport, or Sport Tech trims and active noise cancellation quells the coarseness while active sound enhancement emphasizes the melodious stuff via the standard Bose premium sound system. Getting underway, clutch takeup is linear and predictable and the short-throw shifter on the Z’s close-ratio six-speed manual operates with precision. We did, however, notice some annoying fore/aft driveline lash in our base 370Z test car when tipping in and lifting off the throttle; the automatic downshift rev-matching of the Sport and Sport Tech models may help mitigate that.
