Nissan is launching a comeback. Here's what it's like road tripping in its newest sports car

Once a year, four of my brothers, three of whom own classic cars, gather somewhere for a few days of driving. As often as I can, I join them. I’d been planning for months to meet them this year at a small town in Maryland’s northwest corner. Just a week before our Airbnb reservation was to start, I got an email from Nissan that a Z, one of the pre-production cars, would be available for me to test drive but it was available for only one weekend. That weekend.

Sometimes things just happen to line up perfectly.

Soon, I was driving down I-95 toward Baltimore where I would turn west toward the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Z was a comfortable cruiser with a roomy interior for two people and a good amount of cargo space. Almost the first thing I noticed, though, was that the steering wheel seemed oddly large in diameter for a sports car. Also, it didn’t quite offer as much feel of the road during that freeway drive as I’d expected from a sports car.

There was ample power, though. The Z’s 400 horsepower turbocharged V6 loves to go fast and feels better the more it revs. I had to work not to let it hit its 7,000 RPM limit in first gear as it just felt so good to let run, pulling the car faster. My car had a six-speed manual transmission with a nice stubby shifter. A 9-speed automatic is also available.

When I pulled into the driveway at our Airbnb in western Maryland my brothers came out to see the Z (and also, me, hopefully, but the car received most of the attention.) We agreed it was an excellent design, capturing the feel of the classic in a modern shape. The front end, with its pointed nose and rectangular grille, clearly resembles the early ’70s 240Z the originator of the line. The taillights recall the blocky back lights of the much later 280ZX and 300ZX.

On the road

We spent Saturday watching vintage car races at Summit Point Motorsports Park across the river in West Virginia. On Sunday, we drove out to Shenandoah National Park to drive the famous Skyline Drive that twists along the mountains.

The Z felt at home, the steering better in the curves than I’d expected. The short shifter made switching gears in the manual transmission quick and easy. Pressing a button near the shifter turned on rev-matching technology that automatically matched engine speed to the gear I selected, allowing for smoother shifts. I preferred leaving it off.

The Z whipped through curves and blasted out onto the straights. At road speeds, the car’s weight felt nicely balanced while the driver’s seat felt like I was riding just slightly behind the car’s center of gravity. The V6 made a fantastic sound whenever I had the chance to let it run hard, the turbocharger’s whirr being drowned out by the roar of internal combustion as power increased.

The Nissan Z Performance I was driving would cost about $50,000. The least expensive version of the Z, the Z Sport, has a price around $10,000 lower, but the same engine and transmission choices as the car I drove. (These sticker prices don’t include mark-ups dealers will almost certainly add.) While I was parked at an overlook, someone who told me she had just ordered a Toyota Supra asked me which I liked better. Since it had been a while since I’d last driven a Supra, it was hard to say. Also, Toyota recently added a manual transmission as an option on the Supra, which evens things up more. In terms of style, at least, the Z wins easily, in my opinion.

A couple of years ago, I did a similar trip in a Chevrolet Corvette which has more horsepower and its engine behind the seats, like a supercar. It also costs more than $10,000 more. While the Corvette offers amazing performance, the Z, with its simpler controls, was a nicer long-term companion and easier to imagine driving every day.

Even as Nissan is preparing to take its next big step, releasing its first electric SUV, the Ariya, the Z provides a welcome look back. With its internal combustion power, sharp handling and relatively accessible price, it recaptures a sort of excitement, for Nissan and for all of us, that may be about to drive away over the horizon.