Quote:
Originally Posted by Davey
You're stretching the dollars a little.
A Miata starts at $25K, the FR-S $26K, and the Z at 30K, rounding up. And, the Corvette starts at $55K, which is $13K more than the NISMO.
I don't know about you, but I'm not that comfortable throwing the word "only" in front of $13K when I'm talking about relatively useless depreciating assets like 2-seat cars that probably can't function as anything other than a weekend toy very effectively. Not that you did, but, point being, $10K is a lot of ******* money to most people.
Does a Z "do" 4K more than an FR-S? Or $5K more than a Miata?
Does a Z do everything you need for $23K less than a Corvette?
Is the NISMO worth $10K more than a base Z, even though it isn't actually faster?
These are subjective questions, but my answer is "Yes."
Further, consider the Cayman, which costs a little more than $20K more than the 370Z and has a slower 0-60 time. How can Porsche justify that kind of performance to dollar ratio? Why wouldn't you just buy a Corvette instead, for the same money? I guess *you* would, but I would not.
The Z needs to be improved, but it's still a good value vs. the Camaro and Mustang if you want a car that feels like a sports car and not a fat tub of V8 boat for your $30K (I've driven the new Mustang and it's great but it's no Z), given that you don't really care that you're a few 10ths slower in the quarter mile. It's still a good value compared to the Corvette and Cayman because it provides some of the experience of a powerful sports car for tens of thousands less. It's still a good value compared to the Miata and FR-S because it provides some of the experience of an inexpensive driver-focused car without being underpowered.
I'm not really sure what more you could expect for $30K.
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I agree with every philosophy you speak of concerning the Z. In my opinion, the Z is a better performance value than people give it credit for. And I guess maybe at $30k. It is a good value.
But the real issue here are other aspects of the Z. Remember, us O.G.'s were haggling for the $30k before 2013 when Nissan decided to go back to 09 pricing. We saw nearly $33,000 as a base price.And up top the Nismo could lose about $3,000.
What I think the real issue here is at 3 and 6 years Nissan should have done more to update , materials and the gauge cowel to get smoothed out in a refresh. They had opportunities to add the foglight, upgrade the stereo with Bluetooth and USB, much earlier in the game. They could have tuned the exhaust. Also been more proactive with the CSC failure and a couple of other situations.
As sophomoric as this may sound.... Unfortunately, in a consumer driven society, car companies create the competitive edge with there advertising and engineering claims. It's what sells sports cars. Nissan is playing in a very competitive segment. We'd like to see updates if we're not going to get a new sports car in the traditional 6 year life cycle.
Another thing is. Even though we get Mr. Myagi news from nissan. We don't get the type of news that keeps the consumer excited about the brand.
Loyalists and enthusiasts want to be tantalized. They want to know their car company is working hard at that next level driving experience. Nissan only does that for GT-R and leaf owners. Even Juke owners get more enthusiast attention than we do. Not cool.
This kind of sways people to seeing the Z worse than it is. Because everyone else's car companies engage with them on any financial level. Chevy, Ford, BMW, Dodge, Mercedes, etc. All are creating excitement and buzz and they all have cars in the same price arena as our Z's.
Old heads are ready for the next level. We've been in a Z34 a Looooong Time.