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Nissan 370Z Replacement Testing at Nurburgring, 400 HP Turbo Seems Possible

Sports cars are witnessing a renaissance period right now, kickstarted by the successful launch of the Toyota Supra. While Mazda has been openly talking about the RX-8, Nissan has only now begun looking into the 370Z.
Nissan 370Z Replacement Testing at Nurburgring, 400 HP Turbo Seems Possible 16 photos
Photo: SB-Medien
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The Z car has been through many evolutions over the years, most enjoyed by the community. But Nissan has basically done nothing since the Nismo edition several years back, and even at that time, it felt relatively uncompetitive.

Falling in love and out of love with different sports models is the natural flow of the industry, but Nissan may have realized ow that the Z and GT-R are too significant to be killed off, even though sales alone don't back up their development.

We've been told that, even though these two models are very old, we shouldn't expect successors right away. However, during the recent industry pool, Nissan was spotted testing this prototype.

But we're told that a new Toyota Supra was being used as the benchmark. The 370Z prototype sports larger air intakes, a slightly larger chin spoiler. and deleted fog lights. Could this be down to turbocharging? Well, Z cars aren't known for their forced induction, but Nissan did make the 300ZX with a turbocharged V6 pushing 300 HP, and that was pretty fast back in its day.

Last year, Nissan delivered 3,468 Z cars, including both the coupe and droptop. During the first nine months of 2019, the company moved 1,853 which is another 31% drop.

Throughout the years, there have been numerous rumors about a Z-car successor, suggesting setups like a 2-liter turbo from the Megane RS, a 3-liter turbo and even front-wheel drive. Right now, Nissan definitely needs to look into partial electrification as well, and it probably can't borrow a BMW engine as Toyota did.

But considering the 370Z has always been close in tech with the Infiniti G-Series Coupe, we want to believe that the powertrain being tested here is the Q60 Red Sport's a bi-turbo 3-liter V6 making 400-horsepower and likely to be available with AWD.
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About the author: Mihnea Radu
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Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida.
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