2023 Nissan Z Review // $50,000 Hero...With Enemies

are you watching throttle house i'm thomas and i'm james when we get asked all the time on dms on instagram or email what's the best sports car I can buy for 50k or 30k or 15k and the truth is this is all of those, yeah you take your time with the equation or is it the new z, it's finally here, everything is new, mostly fine, could be largely the same chassis, but hey

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, we appreciate the effort either way, the z It is a lyric that has inspired generations. from car enthusiasts, but for the last few years if someone said "Hey, I bought a 370z" you would assume they didn't buy a new one, that would be silly, no of course they bought a high mileage one that's on their aftermarket third exhaust and They intend to make it a drift car but you can't do that with this, it's brand new, that would be crazy, so that made us realize that enthusiasts can be divided of the cars in three different groups and they all want the same car. let's see what they have to say I own one I'm a resourceful person I can handle some depreciation I can afford the 61,000 Canadian dollars it takes to buy this performance ride z I want a clean new car warranty new paint new paint and for my purposes the new

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z does many things well first of all the damping has to be bearable even though it is the sports suspension with the performance is good it is flexible it does not punish at all I expected it to be harder than that so I am very happy that it is not be the second place, the revs match, so although I have decided to be a car enthusiast and get the manual shifter, I don't have to know how to cure myself and say that I don't have to be a pro on youtube with a haircut stupid and always perfect to be able to heal and tow.

I can put it on s mode and low to the second and it flashes to make you feel like a legend, yes that's fast enough for me. I don't need to be pushing the red line all the time. I don't need to feel powerful. I know what it can do. I've watched a YouTube video and if I want to scare my son, wait, son, wait, it's good. Work, I mean, you're talking about a 400 horsepower 3 liter twin turbo 6 engine. Okay, people have shown that it's not as fast as my recently acquired Dave Supra buddy, but on the road it really feels very fast to me and I like that.

It's the safe go to if I want to push the pedal a little even though I'm told it's rear wheel drive, I'm not rocking all over the place, it doesn't feel dangerous, it's not intimidating and unlike the Supra I don't. Make people say, "Oh, nice BMW, this is a Nissan through and through, because instead of partnering with BMW, Nissan partnered with good old Nissan to make this more important, I think I'll be able to hit on some unfair ladies at this little fair." ma'am, ah, that was a good two year lease, there's still a little collateral left ready for owner two, ah, all yours, thank you friend, my friend, it's okay, I'm owner number two and I really am the owner number two.

I have been owner number two many times. I bought a brz after someone had it. I bought a tts after someone had it. I bought an F-type after someone had it. Second owner sport coupes are my top choice, so I'm very excited to test drive this one owner. 2 I can't. They can afford it new and they like the deal and it's broken so they can start pushing it from day one and they might want to keep it for five or ten years so that every little thing it does or doesn't do has a little more to it. weight the first owner was right this is fast this is a great power plant really very fun the sound is not that exciting it just sounds like a clean v6 the power is there directly in the boost when flying the shifter is the same as the of the 370 but apparently I have improved the timings between one and two to make it more direct, but I have experienced it by driving as hard as I should.

I'm getting a second degree of grind almost every time. What is it about? I also get a second degree of grind when I'm downshifting from third to second which takes some confidence away from the shifter which otherwise feels great and I love that the shift lights match the rev limiter on the meter. It all comes together in this cacophony before it has to change now. the steering has moved from a hydraulic rack to an EPS rack and in the center, the turn in feels better, it's a little more direct for everything else, there is Mastercard because really the steering is a step back, the hydraulic steering in the 370z is superior, the feel from the road is much rawer, they've clearly gone the GT route here, this is a much more isolated experience, it's faster and that turbocharged engine is a beautiful power plant and I have to work really hard to destabilize this because thanks to that limited slip differential that you only get if you spend the extra 10 grand on the performance package it's putting that power down beautifully so really as a 2 owner it's fast enough, it's comfortable, the steering is enough good, the engine is excellent, the only thing I would really change and I'm a little bit adverse to changing things on a car because I would love for it to come perfect from the factory, but the only thing I changed would probably be to find a different exhaust because, although this gets a bit exciting as you go up in the revs I don't know, let's do a little more theater thomas you own it three yeah, where's the costume on the I? well it's just me actually, I'm owner three yeah ok to be fair I know I just bought a m2 and I hate to say it extends into the realm of owner number two.

I'm growing? Am I getting old? I don't know, I'm getting weaker, it is what it is because I'm fundamentally type three, I'm the guy who bought too many really high-mileage, half-rusted junk boxes and turned them into track and race cars, so the z for me it is only good if at this point in its life it has 200,000 kilometers. pretty nuts if it's a fundamentally good car because I'm just going to turn a fundamentally good car into a race car or a drift car so let's see what he has in stock. I have bad news for everyone, I think this thing is everywhere.

It's just that I think it's undersprung because I'm bottoming out the suspension everywhere and, um, the body lean is absurd, it's just that it's jumping on the suspension, it doesn't feel planted, it doesn't feel like it's a sharp sports car that's frustrating and I keep grinding second I don't know why okay come on what you got I want you to be my future race car oh Jesus so the steering is really numb oh come on I know better , good straight line power, even if you turn the corner, no, it's just everywhere and right now it feels very, very heavy, very heavy.

This is normally the point in the video where I would start drifting, smoke would come out of the car and I could tell you how the car reacts in a slide, but Nissan has said that under no circumstances am I allowed to drift this car, which is honestly a shame. , I really mean, okay, listen, technically, it was a power slide, okay, it went sideways after the apex, by definition, it wasn't drifting, yeah, it happens sometimes, it's rear. -All-wheel drive car with lots of horsepower, yes, I still do that. Okay, so I was able to drift it, which I didn't, but luckily we captured that from seven angles, so you can see it a little bit.

But now what I would tell you is that the steering doesn't communicate anything when the rear starts to move unfortunately and it's a little nervous. I would also tell you that there is a little bit of electronic intervention in the salt there, but even though the traction control has been completely disabled, okay, listen, I was very hard on this car because that was an objective evaluation of the track from guy number three, Thomas, who wants to turn this into a race car, but what's left is very The important thing for everyone to remember is that you and I will modify this car.

I would remove the suspension before even driving it the first time. I would send it straight to a shop and they would put in some really nice coil-over shocks. changing the tires to something a little more consistent, I would adjust the alignment to try to get a little more response out of the front and the thing is this is a rear wheel drive manual front engine car with plenty of power and good cooling, which we've been banging all day nothing happened so that's good so the bones are here the bones are here and I can't wait to see what the world does modifying them because if everyone could do it before me so that when I I'm number three in 15 years and I buy it for 10 thousand.

Hopefully it will be a pretty good race car. So is this the best sports car for 50k, 30k and 15k? Maybe the problem is that it is not without competition, there is another sports car. I mean rear wheel drive is a couple 100 bucks and it has a manual transmission and it's not the supra, this is a camaro ss 1le, this is a track car, the steering talks to me and tells me what the front tires are doing. and the rear, the chassis is rigid but the damping complies, it has the magneride because it is the only one, as well as a limited slip differential with variable locking and, since it is a chevy v8, it makes an incredible noise, don't think I'm I bring this up because I'm American and I like American cars.

First of all, I am Canadian. I don't care if the car is American, Japanese, German or whatever. For the most part I'm bringing this up because it's objectively a good car for pretty much the same money if you want a good chassis to turn into a race car or even a drift car this is the one it's very hard to get a Best track car for that money. It will do that too, no problem, so now I'm going to do some lap times on these cars and my question is not if this one will be faster, but by how much, but let's start with the z, as usual.

Only three flying laps were allowed to set a time and you're looking at the fastest lap of each, so this was a car that didn't inspire much confidence at the limit, the tires gave way very quickly and the steering didn't really communicate. However, it is a very well balanced car and the natural way to take a corner is to understeer on entry and then use the throttle to turn it around. In that sense, it was predictable, but the overly soft suspension made it slosh around too much for me. to place it perfectly let's see the rest of the lap so okay the camaro i have said it before and i will say it again this is one of the best sports car chassis on the market the body is so rigid the car It reacts very well, with small input adjustments, but the Magneride is a triumph at keeping the tires planted over the bumps and not disturbing the balance of the car.

It's definitely a less progressive car when escaping than the Z, but a lot is communicated to the driver in 10 10. It doesn't matter and of course the torque for days coming out of a corner for such a big car, it feels very light. and once you get the hang of it, it really isn't intimidating to drive fast, let's see what it can do. Wow, ah, okay, ah, I'm excited, I've got it ready, yeah, well, I went up the rest of the times because I saw you drive these two and, and what did you see? quite different, very different, this eight up collides with this.

I said I'd stop uh yeah, it's a full screen yeah um yeah no this is this is before before I give you any time I just want to say this is not not not a track car no no no I didn't think so it wasn't a sports car either, I don't think they chose to go, really, really, yeah, really, get off the floor, we'll talk, get up, okay, we'll get to that in a second, but I'm going to give. Now at the time of this we did an ss1li before it was in the cup the tires fooled twice in the past and it did a 111 58 58 well so keep in mind that was literally two years ago two or three seasons, yes, a while ago. such different days, different conditions, times should be similar between cars but there are variations just keep it in mind its a benchmark this did on the original tire which is the eagle f1 at 111 oh 62. wow oh 62. yeah so 400 So at the same time basically at the same time a little bit slower like it should be it should be a little bit slower than the same car in cup two because these are still a monster car with tires really good, this is an amazing car, I like it too.

I felt like I could do 10 more laps, I was just starting, whereas this one did, it didn't go one lap, well I don't know, I don't expect this to be as fast, but the supra a91, which is possibly the fastest. specs rival got it made one twelve seventeen down the leaderboard down the uh down we'll go down scroll uh rcf track edition is one thirteen sixty three don't go down go down test the models move on I guess one fourteen what we got one sixteen forty 116.43 leave the track, so without major modifications, but this is tired, thistire doesn't match, although it's okay, so this is a Bridgestone potenza and they make good tires, but this tire on this car with this amount of mass, it didn't work, I overheated them, we monitor the pressures and everything, I overheated them like three corners and then It flew everywhere, I will say that it is very well balanced, although it is as if it were flying. everywhere I was able to control the angle to cover the throttle very well, so yeah, it's there, it's there, it's there, you know what it is, it's sweeter looking than this, it looks monstrous and scary, are we doing lightning of light now? no we're doing the look okay this is visual yeah like you know you're talking about a sixty thousand dollar price range yeah where you have to love the look of a car that's part of it has to love you and this, okay, this.that's lovely oh it does okay yes I like it okay don't you like it I don't really like this this front I'm trying to get used to this mouth um because it's big and square and it's like that isn't it great, yes, yes, it looks like when you put the thing in the dentist, yes, yes, but the profile is fantastic and you know what we mentioned, the supra, that new supra doesn't look like a graduation from the last super if you put them together.

It would be as if it were a different cast, no, this is a lot of z, it seems that I see it, yes, but what they say it has is the essence of zenith, it sounds a little like penis, it sounds a little like yes, yes, but there is many. of elements for that, so I looked at the design of this, did it look good to you? Yeah, and a lot of that is the golden ratio, so from the profile from top to bottom, oh, like the golden mean, yeah, 1.618, yeah, like the divine ratio. Whatever is right, to be fair this has that, yes, but so does the seductive Bill Gate and the perfect playing posture and Conan O'Brien hair, so I don't know if it means what it used to. be, you probably now know what. he's talking about no, but also on the topic of the xenos penis, he has a zi bulge, uh, sorry, it's known as a z bulge, okay, the same approach is taken for the hood, since there is no German lump, it's not like that.

It's not the z bulb, but it is a raised bulge with sharp creases that accentuate the long nose and hint at the power under the hood waiting to be unleashed, take me to dinner first nissan please, but yeah, I think this is on the it's a Coochie. yellow I'm sorry it's huge no no that's rude it's because it's itchy because there was an ice cream popsicle when I was a kid called it's a caduzzi it's that 100 that's what's inspired by that I like listen to the thing The answer is that the z original goes back a long way, yes it had a bumper bar on the front right that divided this part, yes if this had something to get rid of all this square part and I know it needs it for cooling and all that then I think it would this would be a beautiful car exactly what you need for the vocation, it's engineering, it's a bit like Kirby, if you want to swallow your

enemies

you need a big mouth, but as we saw today, it didn't quite work, yes no, I did .

I don't love the wheels, apparently they are five spokes or an homage to four spokes, explain that's what they say, yes we have the z on the side, here we have the biggest gas cap you can have dinner with. uh and obviously the real lights are great, they're fantastic and they're not like the zx and the source material, but interestingly anecdotally I've been living with this, I went downtown and by the way, this is some kind of samurai sword, okay, pretty. cool well i have been living with this i took it in downtown toronto yeah i barely got any attention whereas when i had the supra they followed me home i don't recommend it please don't do that it was scary so Please, and then I kept driving. road here this morning, yeah, and no one looked other than a mazda cx-5 that has princess on board in the back window, rolled down the window and gave me the thumbs up, that's the buyer, that's number one, but It has a giant trunk. a little shallow and uh yeah, if it's a real grand tour it should be nice inside, shouldn't it be fine?

Let's get a good look, okay, I'm just going to turn it up, but don't get excited, girl, right? that sounds like a force in the right, what's wrong with like a bark, you know what I mean, like my m2 when I started it, but I will say huge points because this is very good, I really like this here, they made a good job. The decisions that they have made that have really worked, so throughout the theme of the grand tour it fills up, you don't feel like getting out of that camaro, yeah, it doesn't feel like the camera is very good, yeah, there is a Bad point, actually, yes, yes, yes. the camera is, but this is better, don't get me wrong, it's good, there are some cheap plastics here, however the design of everything, like the supra, has a kind of tact with the infotainment system, this comes here to make room for the zenith cluster of three zenith gauges yeah, they keep things zenus warrior princess yeah uh and then you have these air conditioning buttons down here for the climate control that are easy to use and real climate knobs yeah, this entertainment It's yeah, this is all good Honestly, I really like everything about this, okay, you've been using it, so it's a little slow, yes, in this menu, but with Apple Carplay it's somehow fast, okay, I can't explain it, so okay, I'll get on with it. and the main buttons are buttons and they are also on the steering wheel.

The gauge class is wonderful cool and that's superior I think to the supra and then you can change it you can also customize it so first you have these things here on the rim so g force yeah I have my tire pressure high and boost, yes, but you have boost there, so yes, and also, crucially, there is a turbo speed indicator, crucial, crucial, I was watching it throughout the flying lap. I needed to know, but no, it's really cool because you never get a good look at them and you can see them speed up as you get to the redline because the turbo is tuned like you. it said run to the red line red on the right but we've spent the day in sport mode so you can change this and there's something normal on the gauge so it goes into more that's what just changes the gauge question , just the indicator. yeah, okay, and that matches the normal startup sound, yeah, and then it's enhanced, what splits everything up, what does it do on the edges, oh, I see what happens in the middle, I don't know, I haven't yet discovered.

Okay, but we're getting 14 liters, 100 kilometers with a straight line with some fast laps, that's pretty good, not bad, no, I bet it beats the Camaro, you know what this is good, but you know, I look at it and I think it's heavy. It has that leather stitching look, you know, it's thick, well, I think it's heavy, the car is heavy, but the black everywhere is really boring and yes, visually you can inspect it. I don't think you can have it with the yellow but you can inspect this with blue I don't want to say leather because it's too generous but things that look like leather turn blue or red and on the blue it's a bit toy but I actually really like the shift lever shifts it's huge improvement over the last one not surprising you mean the shift knob the shift knob yeah on the old one even on the nismo for 50 grand it was kind of like yeah kind of , do you have a word, I don't have a word, you're not fine, that's what they and if they had come up with a word, it would have been a better gear shift, but we still have a manual handbrake, thank God , that's very rare these days, but you know some of the packaging problems.

I said the boots are too shallow, yes, and you're thinking, well, spare tire, no, underneath there's a Bose subwoofer that would maybe be nice if the sound system was good, but at best it's okay and we have lost a lot of space in the trunk. a result so it's a bit embarrassing so this is what I would do this is what I would do I like it there is no sunroof however it barely fits with a helmet on I must point this out well but that would add weight I would expect no no no I'd do a sunroof, I'd lose it, I'd lose a lot of fake leather and all that, sure, kill some carpet, get rid of the subwoofer, the sound system sucks anyway, get rid of the carpet, remove the car, let's lose 400 pounds.

That's what I would want and that's what guy three, meaning me, would do right away, but I like the creature comforts and I like, no. That's why you are also a boy and one and one, yes, sorry, it was the same boy. although that was me and then the only other complaint and it's not strong but the seats are not rooted the skeleton is rooted in the 370 and it's not like that I've only sat in them for a small period of time. and they've been fine for me, they're fine, they're fine, they're fine, um, but we know, since this is the performance, we have the silver, aluminum pedals and, uh, and I love this, you know, Ifa says wow wow, you can't compare this to an Ifa, you can't, but if I just say that if there is a spectrum it is here and this one, but I think it is here from the cabin, the steering wheel is nice. beautiful, I think they are the buttons on the steering wheel, easy, the thickness is excellent, BMW is too thick with the m240 and the m2, yes, there is a space here, it has the z in what the meter grouped in the tub, everything like a z pack, it feels special. considering we didn't really think this car was ever going to come out to the point where we were openly mocking it, yeah, yeah, I don't feel bad and then it came along and we were like, wait, yeah, they actually did that. congratulations for listening, there are some tweaks to be made, maybe there will be a nismo version that will improve the thing and be what I want it to be, but this is a cliche at the moment, but I'm happy it exists.

It currently stinks to the limit, yes, a lot, but I would still take this car in 15 years, strip it down, put a roll cage on it and race it because it has the bones, it has the fundamentals that make a good sports car mean guy one and two, it's still a thumbs up, yes this is that scene in gladiator, but it says the video will probably end right here, whichever way the thumb falls, it could depend on the individual person. All we can tell you is that a supra is faster. and sharper but a little more expensive a camaro ss1le is a better driver's car but maybe not as nice a mustang gt sounds better a gr86 or a miata they are cheaper and more connected but much slower and the m240i is a much neater car but not manual as far as z is concerned in all aspects of brand and design the new z passes the task with flying colors the price is not outrageous considering its specifications and it is a nicer and faster evolution of its predecessor for many that's enough but some like Our owner number three will be disappointed that his sports car DNA has been diluted by some Great Torah prep sports car thrills alone.

The new Z just isn't competitive, that's not to say some modifications wouldn't be a big help, but the stock well is. It's nice? Thanks for watching.