Written by Glennwood Ivey
One of the most iconic Japanese sports cars of all time, and the most high performance vehicle on American roads at the time. Living with this car was a dream. If you had it, you might as well be considered famous. Everyone wanted this car, but few people could afford it at the price of $10,000 or more.
Nissan was ready to build a new car under the Nissan name in America after using Datsun for almost 15 years. Their last model was the Datsun 280ZX, one of their nicest looking cars and also very high performing at the time, offering handling as good as or even better than a Porsche. Even today with your own small customizations like new suspension, it handles as good, or better than a Porsche sports car from 2020.
Kazumasu Takagi and his team decided to start building the Nissan 300ZX, with plans to make it faster, improved aerodynamics, and for the first time in Japanese history, would be powered by a V6 engine rather than the inline-sixes the previous Z-cars used. It also featured many luxury options that the previous Z-cars didn’t have, such as an automatic transmission that was optional, more expensive and considered a luxury feature back then; it also came with air conditioning.
They also featured pop-up headlights for the first generation of the Nissan 300ZX, and they continued this trend for cars like the 180SX, 200SX, 240SX and the Pulsar EXA--which did feature the pop-up headlights before the 300ZX.
We also still got some stuff with the 300ZX that we had with the 280ZX, such as a really cool digital display, which according to some drivers gives it a time machine feeling; a voice warning system which only went on until 1987 and wasn’t featured in the Z32; a radio system; a turbo model that kicks the car up from 170 horsepower to exactly 200 horsepower; a 2+2 model which turns the two seater sports coupe into a four seater sports coupe; and instead of a convertible roof, a T-top roof that many people actually preferred because convertibles tend to make a lot of wind noise. It also often has more cargo space than convertibles because the roof panel can be stored in the trunk. This is what an unknown poster says about T-tops on the 300ZX:
“T-tops are great. They give the car rigidity like a hardtop with the "wind in your hair" experience of a convertible. They never required heavy retracting mechanisms like convertibles. Also, because there were two roof pieces, you could always fit them in the trunk.”
Then the Z32 came, which had everything the Z31 had, but to some people it looked way nicer and had a sleeker design. It also had a separate twin turbo model, four-wheel steering (only on twin turbo models), but didn’t feature pop-up headlights. Overall, it was practically the same, including the engine.
Most people really liked the design, and the fact that it had a twin turbo model that made almost 280 horsepower. You could easily bump up to 300 (a very quick car)! Nowadays, that speed is nothing but it was a lot of horsepower back then. Still, you can make this car and the Z31 very competitive, fast cars with the right upgrades and tunes.
Overall, this is one of the greatest Japanese sports cars ever sold in America. I encourage everyone to not only be able to drive this, but to just buy one for yourself--you won’t regret it. Just be sure to do your research!
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