I've had my 370Z for 5 days now, and thought I'd share some observations from the perspective of someone whose previous ride was a 350Z. A few things to state up front. My 350Z was an '06 Enthusiast, M/T. So that's my baseline in terms of any comparisons I make. My impressions, and comparison remarks, might be different if my baseline were an '08 HR 350Z, for instance, or an '03 model for that matter. Another thing to bear in mind is that my 370 is a Touring model, M/T, w/ sport pkg. So I'm comparing an '06 Enthusiast to an '09 Touring, vs. an '06 Grand Touring to an '09 Touring, which is slightly 'apples to oranges'. Finally, my performance-related observations at this stage are a little 'green'. That's because I'm still well within the break-in period and have yet to drive my 370 hard (I'm still under 100 miles on the odometer!).
Having dispensed with all the caveats, let me begin with my performance-related impressions:
- The acceleration of the 370 feels every bit as quick as the 350, if not quicker. I've been keeping the revs below 5k for now and it still feels quick. I'm sure once I'm done with break-in and nail it up to 7500rpm, this thing is going to plant a grin on my face that stretches from one ear to the other!
- It corners better than the 350. I can already tell you that. With the 350, I always felt a sort of odd hesitation when accelerating out of a corner from a stop (like when you stop at light before turning right). That feeling is gone with the 370. It also feels more agile than the 350 and turns more crisply.
- The 370 feels more stable at high speed. The rear of the 350 always felt a little 'floaty' to me at 70mph+, especially if the road got curvy. That feeling is gone with the 370.
- Braking. This one's tough. The brakes are definitely better than what came on my 350 (4 pistons vs 2 up front, 2 pistons vs 1 in the rear). BUT, I upgraded the brakes on my 350 to a set of StopTechs, front and rear, and the brakes on my 370 definitely have less bite than the StopTechs. Although...I probably just need to toss the rubber brake lines and install braided steel ones, and maybe change the pads. Anyway, definitely take my impressions on the brakes with a grain of salt, because I never drove a 350 with the Brembos, and thus have no idea how the feel of the new ones compares.
- Synchro Rev-match. I have mixed feelings on this new feature. Don't get me wrong -- it's cool, it works well, in fact it seems to work better the more quickly one downshifts. But I like blipping my own throttle. I loved to heel and toe into corners in my 350. This automatic rev-matching technology will just make it easier for people who really have no business driving a car with a manual transmission to do just that -- drive a stick and drive it reasonably well. And even with this elitist-sounding remark I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I don't like anything that makes a car more accessible to poseurs and hacks. But on the other hand, I do realize that if not enough people buy the MT model, eventually Nissan might stop offering the Z with a stick, and that would be tragic. The stuff of nightmares!
So maybe it's not such a bad thing to make MT more accessible to people. I've come to think of Synchro Rev-match as a bridge between traditional MT, and paddle-shift manuals. Because what's the nice thing about paddle-shift manuals? Automatic rev-matching. But there's no clutch pedal. Well with this technology, you kinda get the best of both worlds. You get a clutch pedal, and you get the automatic rev-matching. And you can always turn the thing off if you want to go back to blipping your own throttle. This actually leads to my next observation, which sorta straddles the line between being a performance item and an interior item.
- The new gas pedal is floor-mounted instead of firewall-mounted. Not a huge deal, but it does feel different. Seems to me that you have to press down a little deeper before the engine will respond. This ties back to the whole heel and toe thing, because when I turn off Synchro Rev-match to do my own heel and toe, I find it a little harder than it was in the 350, as I have to depress the gas pedal much more with the edge of my foot to get high enough revs, relative to the 350. Well, at least the gas and brake pedals are still close enough together to heel/toe.
Now for my impressions on the interior. Overall, the interior of the 370 is definitely nicer. Not that I ever had much complaint about the 350, mind you. But there's definitely a higher quality feel with the 370. Plus, moving the rear support brace forward is a HUGE improvement over the 350 (see pic 1 below). One of the first things out of my mouth when I looked in the back was "Hey, there's enough room back here to mount two NOS bottles!"
I do have some minor quibbles, however.
- The center console of the 370Z is quite a bit smaller than the one in the 350Z, length-wise. There's barely enough room for a 3" 1911 pistol now. BARELY. And this is the shortest pistol I have! (See pic 2.) In the 350, I could put almost any of my pistols in the center console, including Commander-length 1911s (4.25"). Well, at least it's deep enough for a spare magazine and a tactical flashlight as well.
- They took away the sunglass compartment! In my 350, there was a little flip-down compartment where the dome lights are to put one's sunglasses. That's gone in the 370. (Pic 3.)
- The rear storage compartment behind the passenger seat is a joke. In the 350, the rear compartment sloped out at a 45-degree angle. You had to drop the passenger seat forward to open it, but the thing was huge. I put my emergency road flares in there, as well as jumper cables, my manual, and a first aid kit. In the 370, they chopped the rear off so that it's vertical instead of coming out at an angle. (See pic 4.) The result is that there's a little 'drawer' that pulls out at an angle that's more like a little file folder. There's now an open shelf behind the passenger seat as a result of making the rear compartment vertical. That's fine and well if you want to just put stuff on top of it. But I won't ever put anything on top of it. Call me crazy, but I don't like to have anything unsecured in my car, because in an accident, loose items become projectiles that could cause injury. Heck, forget about accidents -- just spirited driving could cause issues with anything that's just sitting loose on the shelf. Ah...but there's now a real glove box, you say? That brings me to my final quibble.
- The glove box is a nice touch, but it's also a bit of a joke. Check out pics 5, 6, and 7 below. In the first one, the glove box is closed. Looks big, doesn't it? But open it up, and it's not nearly as roomy as one might have assumed. To give a better sense of scale, in the last photo, I threw my key fob in. Keep in mind that the key fob is pretty small.
So that's pretty much it for now. The gripes that I have are indeed just minor quibbles. None of them make me regret getting the 370. None of them make me want to take a 350 over a 370. I love the updated look of the exterior, and I really really like the new blue! (See last pic.)