2023 Nissan Z - Jay Leno's Garage

well it's finally here this is the new z car from nissan uh we all remember the 240z i was there when it premiered back in 1969. it was just a game changer it was basically uh an xke for half the price that's what people used to say at the time you had a six cylinder a manual transmission uh you know roll up windows which seems uh really funny now but back in the day you still had british sports cars where you had to clip the windows in and it had heating and just all the modern conveniences of the time and it was a true sports car and it's become a legend it's probably one of the most legendary cars in the history of japanese automaking and this is the i guess would be the great grandson now wouldn't it uh i saw a version of this i was in japan about five or six years ago no it got us more than that it was more than that that's right it was prob probably closer to 10 years ago mr nakamura was the chief designer then and he took me back and showed me some sketches and what they were thinking and doing like when is this thing going to come out you know it is so hard to make a new version of a classic because you've got rules and regulations headlights can no longer be as low as they were they have to be this high in fact that's why they stopped making the ford gt in 2015 and 2006 because the new federal regulation that the headlights had to be like an inch or two higher and that would have just made it look like a bug-eyed sprite so they just stopped doing it you know so the fact that they've gotten very very close to the original look of the car is pretty amazing there's a lot of science a lot of engineering goes into this it's a three liter it's 400 horsepower the greatest thing it comes standard with a manual transmission or you can get the nine-speed automatic if you want i prefer the uh the six-speed manual box you know the price is pretty close to what it was back in the day no it's not it's not uh 3 500 anymore but if you figure back in 71 or so everything is about 10 times what it cost in 71. so if this was 35 to 4 000.71 it would be 35 000 to 40 000. that's what this is 40 000 you know they didn't make the mistake of a lot of other automakers by pricing it in the 60 70 80 000 range it's still an affordable sports car i mean forty thousand dollars a lot of money i know but uh compared to comparable cars boy it's a heck of a deal and it's a really good looking car uh you've got steel rotors you've got four piston calipers up front you know people make a big deal out of the carbon fiber rotors and all that and those are great when you're tracking a car but when i ordered my uh mclaren mp412c the guy said to me are you going to track the car and i said no he go save 20 grand don't get it and it was the best decision i ever made i saved 20 grand and the steals are fine i mean you can stop on a dime i mean i don't really notice any difference so people that complain oh it doesn't have carbon but it's forty thousand dollars if you bought every piece of this car and put it together yourself it probably cost you 150 to 200 000 uh you know uh simplicity of manufacturing and and the way they're able to build things now i'm surprised they can build it for forty thousand uh if you ever gotten the car painted it's 20 grand it's 20 grand to paint the car properly so the the fact that it's half the price of the car just to paint the thing so but you know it doesn't look like anybody skimped on anything it's really a good-looking car i think it's recognizable as a z the interior i think is really beautiful you've got really up because electric windows and air conditioning go yeah don't forget you didn't get that in the original z for that price and this blue on blue is reminiscent of what they did back in the day too like i said it's hard to uh to convey the impact of the original 240z because you have to remember back in the day japan made very small cars the little honda 600 and these kind of cars 600 cc and they were fine cars but there was still a reputation all was as good as american stuff this is a car that was designed and built for the american market you know it was bigger than most japanese cars because americans were bigger you know they're even bigger and even bigger now so really comfortable really nice i love the blue on blue uh what else have we got the back the taillights the only difference doesn't say datsun anymore it says nissan all kinds of let's see the trunk here does this open you know that's really good size people always say you can put two golf bags in here i guess if you're out playing golf go get a cadillac see if you have this you don't have to play golf you're going to have more fun driving around let's open the hood let's see what we got here okay and look see my favorite thing the stick you know you put those struts in the gas struts and after about five years they wear out you gotta replace them and they're expensive this stick will last forever in fact you can take the stick off your original 240z put it in here and we'll hold it up that's that's cool i think this is really pretty cool twin turbo v6 400 horsepower i know in these days of six seven 800 horsepower cars but those cost three times the money and you know something i've got a miata that i drive and power to weight ratio is a lot of fun it makes a lot of fun to drive and this is 400 horsepower this is basically what a base corvette was a couple years ago and it's a stick i think that's the real selling point you can get the nine speed automatic which is probably faster but it's not as cool i mean this is a driver's car that's what makes it fun i haven't even driven it yet so i'm just assuming but i know how much the original was and obviously they've tried to mimic the original in every aspect so i'm sure driving is the one they've got down the most but you know it's a nice clean design we will drive this very soon they just dropped this off so i could take a look at it and give you a chance to see it too uh this is one of the first ones uh this is uh i think this car debuts on august 17th that's today or that's this week i guess i'm taping this like a month or two earlier there's an embargo on it until people can see it officially but uh you'll see it first and let me give you a real good look at us here so i hope you liked it i'm sorry about the amateur nature of doing this but i thought it was important just to get it out so get your order in real quick

Channel: Leno's Garage

Views: 554,557

Rating: 4.8943 out of 5

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Id: OhJa5eELmjg

Length: 7min 54sec (474 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 06 2021