Originally Posted by RicerX

When Andy Palmer left Nissan for Aston Martin, I truly knew it was over... I just didn't want to admit it. He was the last ranking car guy left in that company. Before he left, there were insiders I was talking that spoke of a 450hp version of what eventually came to be the VR Red Sport motor in the Infinitis for the next gen Z. There was the iDX concept.

Now look at what's happened to Nissan since he has left - more flavors of CVT-driven crossovers, a new light-heavyweight full size truck, a non-revolutionary "revolutionary" flagship sedan, a six-year-old SUV from Infiniti, and two 10-year-old sports cars.

What's Andy Palmer doing? He's busy giving the middle finger to the "reduce displacement and add boost for efficiency" mantra that even Porsche is now adopting, and stuffing giant N/A V12s into flagship GT Sports Cars (see: V12 Vanquish S) with THREE PEDALS available. Yeah, Aston is also building a crossover (I get it, you need a "volume" seller to make the R&D easier to absorb, but at least they're building exciting cool ****), but you can see a guy at the top is able to influence what is built, and that influence is executed from his vision for his company. Palmer's vision is exciting, elegant performance cars. Ghosn's vision is one of pure utility and economy for transportation itself (autonomy and energy independent), and perhaps it's the right one for a volume carmaker.

Ghosn was hired with the task of making Nissan profitable again. He's done that in spades. Nissan is a money-making machine. The man propped up Nissan, used Nissan to prop up Renault, and is about to prop up Mitsubishi. How they've done it and continue to do that is with a portfolio of products that exude a philosophy that doesn't mesh with cars like 370Zs and GT-Rs.

I would rather see the Z die quietly than become a part of that philosophy.

Even Kia has a better idea of what a sport sedan should be these days, if that puts things into better perspective for you. Go look at the new Stinger and tell me if the Maxima holds even a dim candle to it.