End of the 300ZX era ... or ... "they were the best damn sports cars in the world"

Prelude The 240Z was the first Japanese sports car to move the needle in America, with its 2.4-liter in-line six, disc/drum brakes, and giveaway price tag. Throughout the 1970s, the Z-Car-including the larger, more powerful 260Z and 280Z versions-carried the company around on its back. Almost ten years later, Nissan introduced the 280ZX version on the 810 sedan chassis, with trailing-arm rear suspension, a five-speed manual gearbox, and an anemic 135-horsepower smogger engine. In spite of the weak engine, the 280ZX outsold all previous versions by a country mile. The 280ZX Turbo came along in 1981, with a 180-horsepower boosted in-line six, and that was the last car of its generation. The second half of the 1980s brought the 300ZX. With a 3.0-liter V-6 engine, a much slicker body shell, and more luxury, it was more GT than sports car. The standard 160-horsepower V-6 was augmented by a turbocharged version rated at 200 horsepower and a chassis equipped with driver-adjustable dampers. The 1984 300ZX broke all existing sales records and became the best-selling sports car on the American market. Nissan tweaked the 300ZX once for 1986 and again in its last year, 1989. Climax For the 1990s, Nissan brought together all of the lessons it had learned - from the American market, from its very successful Z-Car and IMSA GTP racing, from its previous V-6 engine designs, and from its earlier turbocharging prowess - to produce a completely new 300ZX. For starters, the envelope was much slicker and more contemporary than any previous Z-Car. As with some of the 280 and earlier 300 versions, the new model was sold in both coupe and long-wheelbase 2+2 versions, with optional T-tops and five-speed manual or four-speed automatic gearboxes - lots of choices for buyers. The engine for the new-generation 300ZX was entirely new, with dual overhead camshafts (the previous version had a single overhead cam) and four valves per cylinder with variable intake-valve timing, and a 10.5:1 compression ratio, generating 222 horsepower. Here was a 7000-rpm engine that would pull the 3500-pound ZX from rest to 60 mph in about six seconds flat. But there was more a lot more. The bespoilered Twin Turbo version carried three slots in the nose and two intercoolers to cool a small, quick-spooling Garrett turbocharger on each bank of the V-6, pushing 9.5 pounds of boost and generating 300 horsepower at 6400 rpm (the magic 100 horsepower per liter) and 283 pound-feet of torque. The Twin Turbo also carried twenty-percent-stiffer springing, two-mode electronically adjustable dampers, Nissan's Super HICAS (High Capacity Actively Controlled Suspension) four-wheel-steering system that moved the rear tires through a range of two degrees to help the car corner, and staggered rubber, 225/50ZR-16s front and 245/45 ZR-16s rear. A set of 11-inch vented ABS disc brakes ensured consistently decent stops. Nissan offered the Twin Turbo only as a two-seat coupe, and only with T-tops, but it also faced consumer reality, offering a detuned, 280-horsepower version with the 4-speed automatic transmission. In every model, though, the interior was essentially the same. One of the coolest cockpits of the era, it mimicked some of the car's exterior curvatures, with a beautiful array of instruments and controls and a console arranged in a tight, driver-centric layout. Every car magazine in the business showered the new ZX with praise and awards, ("Dollar for dollar, it's the best damn sports car in the world," exclaimed one). The reasons this car was so successful are manifold. It looked slick and smooth against the contemporary coupe competition (Toyota Supra, Mazda RX-7, Porsche 944/968, Chevrolet Corvette). It made huge power for the time. The instrumentation was racy and complete. The bucket seats were heavily bolstered, comfortable, and containing in the corners. The shifter was among the best on the market at the time. The combined V-6 engine growl and four-pipe exhaust note were otherworldly attractive. But most people bought the ZX, and especially the Twin Turbo, because it went like hell from stoplight to stoplight (about fourteen seconds flat in the quarter-mile, at over 100 mph), and went around corners better than a 3500-pound Japanese sports car was supposed to (about 0.9G on the skidpad), aided by the fat, staggered tires and Super HICAS rearsteer gear. If the 300ZX Turbo had one glaring fault, it was its tendency to break the rear tires loose in fast corners when the boost came on. That one foible, however, was more than offset by the last 300ZX's slick styling, everyday driving useability, tractability, good road manners, and a willingness to turn in at the flick of the wrist and stop progressively and neatly from extralegal speeds all day long. In its day, the 300ZX was one of the very best driver's cars available, and cheap, too. Windup For about $33,000 to start, the 300ZX Turbo was in a class by itself. Unfortunately, the price didn't stay stable over time, rising more than $4000 due to ongoing yen/dollar complexities. That, and impending federal regulations that would have made the car much heavier, put an end to the 300ZX era in 1996. Source: Winding Road