Nismo Z vs Dark Horse Mustang and GR Supra - The Dying Breed | Everyday Driver

[Music] these cars are a Dying Breed you know the front engine rear drive sports cars this is not a common part of the market anymore the choices really are dwindling the Camaro is dying the Challenger is going to go away after they get done with like 4500 different special editions all three of them are automatic transmissions all three of them have 19in wheels right in the high 50s low $60,000 range and all three of them are Motorsports derived so the Nismo Z could be the 400 Z there's much debate about that but all I know is I can't believe this exists at all and Ford has brought out this new Mustang the Dark Horse the one above GT which actually suits the character of the Mustang very well so I find it interesting that both this new Mustang and the new Z aren't new at all they're both built on a revision of the chassis prior keeps the car around but shows you just how hard it is to actually justify making cars like this anymore the gr Supra had to be here Toyota brought this back in collaboration with BMW as you know and some of you were typing right now that we didn't even bring a Toyota we just brought a BMW product can't we just have nice things and celebrate the fact this car exists at all you'd think that since the su's been introduced that a lot of other stuff would have come along that made the Supra feel old and irrelevant and neither are true Great Cars Great roads and all the reasons we love to drive road trips comparisons test drives and podcasts this is everyday [Music] driver the Supra was always the Z's natural competitor and as the Mustang has EX existed in a world where all of its competition is left the Supra for price can now be compared to the Mustang BMW Toyota don't care who makes it it's $558,000 worth of worthwhile sports car it's not perfect it has its issues but I can't believe this car exists and it's actually this fun this is an excellent sports car BMW has always sandbagged on their engine power output right and this 2021 was the one where it changed the power went from about 355 up to 382 that's significant this car absolutely moves technically this Supra has the least power of these three but Dino comparisons have put this Supra quite close to the Nissan it's so easy to access the power in this Supra in fact this is the one that seems to be the most ready to go it responds the best to partial throttle much more than the other two it takes off like somebody poked it honestly it's just such a little chihuahua of a car just ready to nip at your heels and be like what do you want to do I'm excited today on everyday driver the supra's like a chihuahua I I don't know how we end it up there either just that's the way it feels in this group I love this inline six this has an 8-speed automatic which shifts fine it's acceptable it's just not a dual clutch you can argue that automatic transmissions just bug you and that these sports cars are not valid because they're automatics you know it doesn't ract from the Driving Experience it's just that manuals add a new level that automatics can never have this ZF 8-speed transmission is good but this car got significantly better the minute Toyota finally released a manual transmission version that doesn't make sense in this comparison since the other two are automatics and the Z only comes that way the super manual is an absolute case study in the fact that in already good car can be made more fun by adding a good manual transmission the Z was already fast but Nissan has bumped the power up to 420 horsepower dude 420 384 lb feet of torque this car is anything but Dazed and Confused the power is [Music] astounding the standard zc car is fine speed wise power-wise it didn't feel like well this really ought to get a power bump it's minimal here it's about 20 horsepower 34 lb feet of torque it's not a lot you don't need more power than that you don't I mean you can have more power but on a road like this are you going to use it probably not I am not complaining about power you know what it actually sounds pretty good too that's quite a howl and I'll be honest if you hang out at high RPM in the Z it gets a little drony a little Annoying that's a that's a little much for a daily but okay you did buy a aggressive track tuned car point taken if you want the Nismo and you do you get this transmission which is a nine-speed I am concerned with you about the 9-speed automatic dual clutches have proven themselves to be ideal for track use and that is the focus of this so from Nissan's perspective let's just do the automatic the Lesser Z comes with this 9-speed not tuned as well and a manual transmission why not make it available in this upper one well that's because they think all that people care about is lap times I'm not sure that's true but okay all right it doesn't shift quite as fast as a dual clutch but it certainly shifts faster than the automatic on the base car half a second faster and this transmission is doing very well but then when you go to Sport Plus this is now your chance to let the car do the thinking it's thinking well it's taken me almost to Red Line it kind of knew it's tuned like a dual clutch that's pretty good news that's the transmission doing it for itself it's actually making some decent choices if I was out here to drive hard or if I was driving on a track I still would rather choose for myself I'd rather do that with this weird stick movement device and an extra pedal but we all seem to believe in this childlike way that well if it gets a better number then it must be better not not really I mean faster can be more fun but it's not a guarantee I do want to manual but if you are track focused the manuals are slower despite rev match ooh look at that the car is now really good and merely an automatic transmission is enabling you to actually be faster that's what Nissan Motorsports is all [Applause] [Music] about the engine's getting a lot of press in this Dark Horse because it's now reached 500 horsepower it doesn't put that much down to the wheels but 500 horsepower is actually only a small bump from where the Mach 1 was so when you get in and you punch the start button and the Steed wakes up and breathes fresh cool air through those nostrils into the Twin throttle bodies give it the rains and you dig your spurs into the gas pedal okay all right I can't do anymore they've taken the GT engine this coyote motor is now 500 horsepower and 418 lb feet of torque now because it is the only naturally aspirated car here that does mean that it feels a little bit underpowered like those numbers are not as advertised down low because it has to build its power but it builds all the way through the Rev band it never actually drops off it works its way all the way toward that 7500 RPM Red Line and it feels like it's pulling the entire time this car sounds like it's going 100 mph at 3,000 RPM you know what's interesting to me is that the Mustang is always associated with sound yeah that's good I like I like that that's just satisfying in spite of the gearbox that is just a satisfying engine to hear and it is wonderful to just rev it up working your way toward the red line of course this would be more fun in a manual but the Nismo only comes in an automatic so we tried to level the playing field a bit unfortunately that means that the Ford is stuck with this this uh this Ford 10-speed now you might say it's not a pure Mustang without a manual transmission and this has the 10-speed automatic it's tuned differently than GM did and I want something more out of this I'm in sport mode and it feels like it's waiting for something I want this to be more responsive and it just isn't why isn't it it works better in auto mode I honestly it's probably I'll just go there I'll let the car think for itself of course even in sporty modes look it's going to it's going to run for high gears it responds strangely many times much slower than you want a lot of times on partial throttle the shift is this long dragging thing that feels like it's trying to pick a gear and find one or maybe make it in the back before it plugs it in everybody knows that you're faster on track in a pdk or an automatic but not this one I need it to downshift without thinking because here's This brilliant engine and every time I want instant gear shifts it isn't you can get this Dark Horse with the trimic manual which was the same manual transmission that came in the Mach 1 that is really the gearbox you [Music] want this winter or anytime your car is going to sit you need a battery tender battery charger to make sure your car starts the first time every time and all the time keep your battery healthy with a single or multiple Bank chargers for cars of every era and all kinds of batteries start with trust that's why we partnered with battery [Music] tender I appreciate what Ford is doing in their commitment to the Mustang the Dark Horse though I feel like is best repres resentative of what Mustang is about despite the price but I'm struggling with the weight and the handling even though I've gotten Magna ride on this car and that is standard on all the Darkhorse versions this is an old school kind of thinking it's still a muscle car with modern components modern suspension that are making the muscle car thing it's overcoming what the muscle car feeling is doing this has the sharpest Turnin of any Mustang I have ever driven the front end of this in spite of having that 5 L V8 feels lighter and turns in sharper and faster than any Mustang I've driven now part of that is the fact that they've actually tightened up the steering rack used to be about 16 1/2 to 1 this is 15 1/2 to 1 and I I noticed as soon as I drove this car but there's a Counterpoint this is actually the worst electronic power steering system I have ever driven on a modern sports car there is absolutely no information I've hit BMW and others before for having no information on electronic power steering this is worse than all of them I'm not feeling anything through the corner there's nothing here it's not that there's just a little bit of steering feel I don't feel anything there is zero information from the tires I'm having a conversation with somebody on Zoom and they're on mute now this car is not equipped with a handling pack the handling pack adds $5,000 to this car and we're already talking 70 grand primarily the handling pack is wheels and tires this car is wearing 255 with fronts to 75 in the rears but the handling pack moves up to 305 fronts and 315 rears on plli tropo rs's without the crazy wide tires and the handling extra stiff suspension I don't care on a back road I'm not back here going o this this really ought to be stiffer that's not my problem with this car at all the handling pack wouldn't change my big takeaways on this car which are where' the steering feel go and why is it so big I thought the Z was Heavy until this showed up and re-calibrated what it means to be a modern sports car it'll hang onto a corner for sure but it doesn't have that lightweight sports car kind of feel that I know both Todd and I are after and that's what's preventing me from loving the Mustang of the three cars here this feels enormous now it's very agile but this weighs 4,000 lb now 4,000 lb and this is made up by while it's all this technology and the fact that you have a cooler for everything transmission oil you name it there is a cooler in here to keep this cool on track massive brakes massive everything it's not surprising it weighs 4,000 lb and then I zoom out and go why does it weigh 4,000 lb that is a massive amount of weight for a sports car but that's where we are in the modern time so I feel like this leaves the Mustang in a strange one foot in either Camp it's a bit of muscle car and it's a bit of sports car and it's trying to be everything to all people it's the blessing and the curse of the Mustang I'm also interested in these brakes because they're very good no they're beyond very good but there's just a beat between when you break hard and when the brakes actually take hold there's just a slight beat but then they're so good you're not going to believe that a car this heavy can slow down this quickly the more I drive this the more it reminds me of the current M2 now when we drove the Mustang Mach 1 we actually compared it to the BMW M4 because they were surprisingly similar with the M2 getting even heavier this starts to feel lot like that similar screen architecture similar instant divein of the steering wheel the front end just Dives toward whatever place you pointed it however also like the BMW there's really no steering feel to speak of so we have muted everything and chased BMW I'm not sure that was a Mustang Target maybe we'll put them together and we'll talk about that I'd also be curious to see how this feels compared to the outgoing Camaro SS because again if you get the automatic they share gearbox but the SS feels a little bit smaller than this in spite of being only a tiny bit lighter but on this car I'm not feeling the magnar ride goodness that I have on other versions of the Mustang it's not setting this car apart for me it's making it good but I know the other two Japanese competitors are kind of nodding their head and saying bring it all of these cars weight is on our minds weight is the enemy it's always been the enemy of sports car driving and racing so it's surprising when Nissan made the Nismo heavier than the base models of the Z the Nismo weighs 3700 lb and I feel like Nissan has created the magic trick that BMW does the heavier car feels light to drive this feels like the completed new zc car it feels like the one they released prior to this they weren't quite done they needed more time it it wasn't fully finished but the deadline came up so we got to put some sort of project forward and we'll get whatever grade we get well the grade wasn't good enough and the car wasn't good enough this car should not weigh this much that's disappointing and I'm sure the track would magnify it even more but on a Canyon Road like this I am impressed ow that is better than I thought it was going to be this change in Dynamics is because they changed almost the entire suspension setup it's got more aggressive bushings it's got more aggressive dampers it's got a stiffer suspension setup all of the Springs are stiffer which is why this car feels so different and so much better Nissan has put a lot of effort into making this car very trackworthy and track ready I'm so mixed because weight is the enemy the series of Corners the weight shift is the most telling for sports cars I keep finding myself driving just a little bit harder in this car than I did the last time I went down this road I've already hit a g on my meter here on both directions and I'm actually mostly talking to you I'm not even setting out to try to find hey let's see how high we can get the G meter I'm at a g both ways already there is no adaptive suspension on this the problem is it makes it very harsh for normal driving this is how this car should drive it's not too punishing on a daily okay it is stiffer than the standard one and if you live in an area with terrible roads you may hate me for saying that but if you're buying a sports car let it feel like a sports car this doesn't feel like it's punishing except for some of the worst roads I've driven it on in the week that we've had it this is a really satisfying and confidence inspiring car to drive quickly on a back road or slowly in traffic it can do both got to be honest there's a lot of bragging rights involved with driving the Motorsports version of any sports car but when you get get on a Canyon Road anything smooth this is far better than the ride quality would suggest I know that for Nissan this is set up as the track tuned version but the truth is this is just version this is just what the Z should be don't buy another one the problem is you're now spending 70 grand and you're stuck with only an auto also you add 15in brakes to any car and you jam the brakes on hard and you will make yourself sick this car hustles in a way I didn't expect it's planted the other Z had a lot of body roll this stays pretty flat and it's just such a progressive application of steering H I have a sensation of the fact that the wheels are turning down there somewhere connected to what I do here I don't feel like this is just making the Declaration and somewhere a computer decided this does feel like it's connected this is what I wanted the new Z to feel like this is the car I was hoping for for if you're going to use the chassis of the 370 it should feel like this when you drive it and refine it further and the nmo gets it done I am impressed with this car and I didn't think I would be this is how the Z should have been when it made its return this has a surprising amount of agility interaction it is where has this Z been hiding apparently under the Nismo badge that's where it's been hiding [Applause] gr Supra it is amazing to feel this car as soon as you get in the difference in a short wheelbase and lighter weight it's just so refreshing it's like jumping into a cold pool the difference is so acute driving the Supra in proximity to the Mustang makes this feel like a 20 lb car the super quick turn in the 700 lb of weight difference means that this car just feels light and Tiny and it's neither but in comparison to the other two this is the lightest cheapest car here I feel a lot more through the nose of this car I feel more about what the road's doing and this isn't even the one that has the best steering feel one of the things that makes this fun initially is also a downside when compared to the Z and that is this has BMW Style steering tuning and what I mean is most modern BMWs dive for the corner like a dog that saw a squirrel it's like Corner oh my God the problem with that is this car ends up feeling a little jumpy I'm very surprised because I thought that this super would end up feeling actually just sharper and better than the Z and even though it Dives in Faster tiny little movements of the wheel actually change the attitude of this car it never feels as planted this Supra is not as confidence inspiring as the Z for the most part part the Mustang is a better all-arounder it's got a longer wheelbase it's going to be a lot more comfortable for road trips 97.2 on the Supra 100 in on the Nismo and 107 10 in longer on the Mustang look I feel like I'm seeing just as much of the hood on the Supra as I am on the Mustang but the feeling out of the front is entirely different that front end is so light this requires smooth inputs because a jerking input into a corner is really going to disrupt this car because it's going to fling itself toward the corner much more than you expected it to this car is on its toes and a bit jumpy and that can be really fun and engaging when you're on any kind of fun back road driving it is very easy when we're at the sports car level like this to just look at numbers and try to claim which car is better based on numbers alone and I feel like of any car comparison this one hearkens back to what we started the show we found an everyday driver to be and that is you cannot drive a spec sheet you cannot throw numbers at me and tell me what car is better the Supra has been with us for over 3 years now there's a lot of people who didn't like it and it's gotten worse for them but I think this has aged really well and the surfaces still look modern and interesting and it still looks like a high performance sports car it's got a small proportion but the surfaces actually swell out to make it look more substantial than the size of the car this is not a big car the door sill here is pretty easy to knock your head on and it's kind of hard to see out of the visibility in here has never been very good the back window is not that great the storage is not awesome this has the typical sacrifices you expect when you get a sports car but then once you're in it feels correct it feels like a smaller lightweight sports car this is my favorite instrument panel because it feels like a combination of panel anog and digital even though it's mostly digitally backed this has the plague of attacked on screen do we need big screens make it just some little readout down here I it's small enough where I think it could go away when Nissan released the new Z it felt like it was unfinished in The Styling department and the Nismo has sorted that out as well there is a new front and rear pH and side skirts and just those changes seem to have cleaned up this design and made it much more coherent and own look that feels a lot better the proportion of the nose has changed the balance and made the car look better every bit of the car is focused on aerodynamics you can see the canards you can see the Rockers look at the three-piece spoiler this is actually my favorite interior of these three just because it feels like we didn't build it around screens first which is something I really appreciate you get an instrument panel up here a digital display but it still has a hood over the top of it this feels very old school to me now that's because the bones of this are 20 years old when nobody was putting this many screens in a car so they had to adapt but they have done a good job of taking the interior of the 370Z and making it feel more modern these seats are an upgrade from the Lesser Z and they are wonderful they are ricaro seats but you know what they're comfortable to drive hard but they're comfortable to just drive in period I love the manual raros these are really good and being manual means they can be a lot thinner look how thin these seats are look how good they are I like the manual handbrake I like the window switches I I like it more here and I like the size of the paddles in the nmo anything in this interior that's piano black feels cheap everything else around it actually feels okay I like the HVAC knobs that actually are carried over from the 370 those are nice the paddles feel great the wheel is good you gained more Alcantara a few things to make this feel like hey you spent 70 grand but the truth is this isn't a $70,000 interior knowing that this car has 500 horsepower it seems like the surfaces make sense there's a lot of visual weight and mass in this car the front headlights are more distinctive I do like the grill now this has the Dark Horse appearance package and it's got the stripes and it says Dark Horse on the hood over here the wheel design is interesting and excellent but the biggest thing about this car is the paint we never talk about paint we mentioned color but this paint color is called Blue Ember and it's got a metallic flake in it that you can only see in sunlight and it's actually spectacular should we talk about the interior Samsung has been here and they have installed a TV screen very similar to the one that we found in the recent BMW M2 where it just kind of feels like it was a home screen on little notches there is no more Hood over the instrument panel it is a screen and this has become a signature well of every car manufacturer and it's actually big enough without dominating the cabin now it does a lot of stuff it looks very nice it is quite gimmicky I can't believe I'm going to do this I can go here to the custom modes custom theme and I can go Fox body gauges I've read a lot of reviews where people have said that they favorite thing about this car is the fox body gauges that shouldn't be a favorite thing there should be much more going on with this car I don't understand how that's a selling point but okay how about remote rev you can stand over there in the coffee shop and out in the par paring lot I just want it to be good to drive this also has raros just like the Nismo Z but they're too thick they're too big I like the seats in the z a lot better they are goodlook but they're also really comfortable they're not those seats that are just such track Focus that they aren't comfortable they're actually surprisingly comfortable I wonder if the the seats in here were a lot thinner designers would suddenly realize the interior is too big [Music] are we not entertained car manufacturers are building sports cars but not only that they are taking their race programs and deriving these models that we can buy that's a great which great news that's a great point I can't believe these exist at all I mean if you think about all the cars that are going away and you think about the fact that all anybody wants to make is an electric 5- seat silver CUV it's nice to have these at all even if two of them are in white what's crazy though is the gr Supra is kind of the old one of the bunch yeah that's a little weird to think is weird it's not that old but yet it's still competes and I love that Mustang is back in its Seventh Generation and I love that Nissan has created the Nismo version I'll be perfectly honest I was worried that the Nismo after hearing the weight and the numbers it wasn't going to be good to drive but I drove it and thought this is better than I ever thought it's better than it deserves to be it's the Z I wanted the Z to be when we drove it originally we drove the base version the non-nismo version I just was like this is not the car I wanted I got in the Nismo and I was like this is the car this is the car that all the Z's should be you've heard me talk about it already now it should have a manual maybe there's hope maybe there's hope because the supera started as an automatic only and they eventually went okay we'll give you a manual it made the car even better this is not the manual Supra but it does exist and it made it better so maybe Nissan's listing maybe there'll be a manual in cuz that would be good I think you and I will agree that weight is the through line for all three of these cars it almost doesn't matter wheelbase it doesn't matter engine power what matters the most is weight and it was revealed as soon as I jumped back in the gr Supra so is that your first car is that your number one car the gr super is my number one car really yes that's interesting because I've given it four stars in many reviews it is a four-star car it is better than the internet tells you it is yes it's incredibly fun but I have to say I am giving the Nismo the first slot because it is exactly the car I was hoping they'd make it has come so far from the other one that I have to give it four stars and number one here if you would just do the manual you would nail it it's true so I have to give it first place even though it is too heavy but it but it it carries its weight so well it drives it drives everything I wanted it to honestly I kept driving it going this is just awesome so the Z is one the super is two and this while I like it it's heavy and there's no steering feel at all you noticed did you it is the blankest steering wheel in history and so I'm sorry but it's really cool but it's three and a half stars and in third look I really appreciate the Mustang I've always been into Mustangs and I love what Ford is doing like I keep saying but this is a third place car for me too even though it's really impressive and it sounds good I mean of any car here best power best engine note yeah I just want something lighter I want something more involving but you know we all win right we all win they're all here right so gold star for are we doing gold star no we're not gold star for everybody trophies one of them is right for you presidential vice presidential let's not get into politics we were doing so [Music] well I feel like Toyota threw off its Supra history by building this GR I feel like their collaboration with BMW and this new chassis kind of freed them to do something brilliant there is no doubt this is home this is the one that I want every time I drive this I realize I don't care who made it I don't care what the badge is none of that's important this is an excellent car that is quick and agile and fun to drive the other cars are $10,000 more expensive than this and they don't feel $10,000 more fun impressive car it's a party trick the power is absolutely undeniable and it's this reason it's not just sound it's naturally aspirated power why this V8 can never go away but I need more out of my sports car it comes away in third place but not because it's bad this handle very well this is engaging and fun to drive there's no question but the steering has completely checked out of the [Music] conversation clearly Nissan has worked through the brakes the suspension the chassis tuning but the Precision of the Z is so high I didn't expect this car to be this good I want to like it more and it's not the manual transmission that would change things for me it's the weight this is the finished product of what the Z was supposed to be I feel that strongly the other one no this one yes I like this car a lot much more than I ever expected to it's satisfying it's fun it's well done this is what happens when you take an older chassis and you do it right very impressed [Music]

Channel: EverydayDriver

Views: 191,083

Keywords: Nissan Z, 2024 Nismo Z, Nismo Z, Nissan, Ford Mustang, Mustang Dark Horse, Dark Horse Mustang, GR Supra, Supra, Toyota Supra, Driving, Comparison, Straight Pipes, Throttle House, Top Gear, Everyday Driver

Id: XW9L2z0myG4

Length: 32min 39sec (1959 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 27 2024