Nissan Has Trademarked A New 'Z' Logo And It's Time To Get Excited
It’s becoming one of the motoring world’s worst-kept secrets - Nissan is working on an all-new sports car, and we’ve known for ages. The company’s vice president of design Alfonso Albaisa has already said he’s involved in a replacement for the next Z car, and although Nissan itself hasn’t said anything official since then, a curious 370Z-based test mule spied at the Nurburgring a few months back added fuel to the fire.
More recently - as spotted first by Motor Trend - the Japanese firm has filed a patent with the Canadian government for a new Z logo. Please stop the hype train, as we want to get on.
It’s thought the long-awaited successor for the ageing 370Z will adopt the name ‘400Z’. Although unlike its predecessors, that name won’t refer to displacement - the car is set to use the VR30DDTT 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6 also seen in various Infiniti products.
In production form, the VR30 is always paired to an automatic gearbox, but another recent 370Z report suggested that a manual version will still be available. It’s certainly technically possible - Nissan paired the engine with stick shift for a 400bhp 2018 SEMA show car.
As for when we’ll see the new Z car (rumoured to be a crossover rather than a sports car, once upon a time) will arrive, we can’t be sure. It might be revealed before the end of the year, but with the automotive industry currently under heavy disruption, we might be waiting until 2021. The ancient 370Z will have to soldier on for a little longer, it seems.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
The previous 2 Zs (the Z33 and the Z34) were either a total letdown or a bit of a letdown, but a letdown nonetheless since the majority of the people hated it; but those cars has some kind of ‘cult following’ because some tuners were using those as a platform for tuning/project/drift cars - mostly with their engines swapped. but if the new Z is indeed a cross-over it’s gonna be like a Corvette being made as a hot-hatch that looks like some low-life K-Pop artists instead of an American rocker (or a Japanese rocker / lady rocker for the case of the Z) - it was out of place because it’s never ever meant to be that way since its very genesis. It’s never meant to be like that since Hour One. In this case the cross-over Fairlady Z car would be a letdown, just hope they didn’t make it as a cross-over otherwise the Fairlady Z / the Z-car reputation would sunk deep in the quicksand.