Photo: Nissan
You might just have to say goodbye to the Nissan 370Z moniker pretty soon. That’s because according to the latest info, the car will be getting a number of new engines in the future, hinting a possible rebranding too.
The name of the car was always used to point out the size of the engine it hid under the bonnet. For example, the current 370Z model uses a 3.7-liter V6 and it was the same with all Z versions ever since Nissan first introduced the nameplate back in 1969.
There’s also another trademark they created over the years: every car had a 6-cylinder engine. No matter if it was a V6 or an inline 6, the headcount was always the same. It looks like Nissan is planning to drop that tradition as well, to keep the moniker alive. Sort of.
Talking to Car Advice at the Nismo Festival in Mount Fuji, Japan, Nissan’s corporate Vice President and Global Head of Marketing and Brand Strategy said that the Japanese company is thinking about offering more engine variants for its coupe and roadster versions.
“I think an engine is never a need or a must, because what you need is to deliver on what the car stands for and if the 370Z stands for real performance and real driving I think it doesn’t need a V-6 to do that,” Roel de Vries said.
However, the line-up could be differentiated depending on the market. For the US, bigger engines could be kept alive but then, that would require more investments in the assembly lines and that’s an aspect that is still being studied. After all, the car has to be profitable.
“Can you sell a V-6 [370Z] in Europe? No. Does this mean the next Z will have a V-6 [for Europe]? No, of course we are not going to do that. [But] there’s still an audience that wants a six-cylinder engine, so why should we give it up? That’s all part of ongoing studies,” de Vries added.
Therefore, while the moniker itself might be changed depending on the size of the engine under the bonnet (we might see a 200Z model), the feeling and the performance of the car should be on par with older models, at the very least. Hopefully, the new plants will be even more capable.
There’s also another trademark they created over the years: every car had a 6-cylinder engine. No matter if it was a V6 or an inline 6, the headcount was always the same. It looks like Nissan is planning to drop that tradition as well, to keep the moniker alive. Sort of.
Talking to Car Advice at the Nismo Festival in Mount Fuji, Japan, Nissan’s corporate Vice President and Global Head of Marketing and Brand Strategy said that the Japanese company is thinking about offering more engine variants for its coupe and roadster versions.
“I think an engine is never a need or a must, because what you need is to deliver on what the car stands for and if the 370Z stands for real performance and real driving I think it doesn’t need a V-6 to do that,” Roel de Vries said.
Size is the matter
The main issue is that the size is of the 6-cylinder engines is just too big for certain markets, like Europe for example. That’s because over there, the taxation is based on the size and power of the engine and prohibitive laws prevent people from buying Nissan’s car.However, the line-up could be differentiated depending on the market. For the US, bigger engines could be kept alive but then, that would require more investments in the assembly lines and that’s an aspect that is still being studied. After all, the car has to be profitable.
“Can you sell a V-6 [370Z] in Europe? No. Does this mean the next Z will have a V-6 [for Europe]? No, of course we are not going to do that. [But] there’s still an audience that wants a six-cylinder engine, so why should we give it up? That’s all part of ongoing studies,” de Vries added.
Therefore, while the moniker itself might be changed depending on the size of the engine under the bonnet (we might see a 200Z model), the feeling and the performance of the car should be on par with older models, at the very least. Hopefully, the new plants will be even more capable.
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