2024 Nissan Z Nismo First Drive Review: A Good Car With Multiple Asterisks

When it came to the 2024 Nissan Z Nismo, though, everybody seemed to be on the same page. Namely,

Going into driving the Nismo Z, I was ready to give Nissan the benefit of the doubt. And in a vacuum, the hotted-up Z is quite a good sports car. Unfortunately, though, the internet's initial complaints about it are indeed valid.

Let's start with some positives, though. Right off the bat, the Nismo Z looks cooler than the regular Z. There's a pointier 240ZG-inspired "G-Nose" front end with a wider, less polarizing grille featuring what Nissan claims to be the thinnest honeycomb mesh in the company's history—bring that up at the next Nissan owner's meet and watch the Altima boys boil over with envy. Canards on all four corners and a more aggressive lip spoiler apparently add real downforce while a red lip wraps around the entire lower body to let people know this ain't no vanilla Z.

Inside, the engine start/stop button, drive mode toggle, and digital tach are now red while Alcantara covers the steering wheel and sportier Recaro bucket seats.

Under the hood sits the same 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 that powers the base Z, but here it's making 420 horsepower and 384 lb-ft of torque, up 20 hp and 34 lb-ft thanks to increased boost pressure. Per Nissan, the physical turbos are the same as in the regular Z but software was tweaked to essentially let them spin faster while independent ignition-timing control tech lifted from the GT-R was used to optimize per-cylinder combustion.

Just like the normal Z, power travels exclusively to the rear wheels through a mechanical limited-slip differential, but, as mentioned, the Nismo Z is automatic only. No six-speed manual here; nine-speed auto or bust.

Climbing in and setting off, the new Nismo Z immediately steers like a sharper, more aggressive machine than the regular Z. New 19-inch Rays forged aluminum wheels are wrapped in the same Dunlop SP Sport Maxx GT600 rubber found on the GT-R, lending to crisper, more direct-feeling steering and, of course, better grip.

It's agile and lively and steers with an enjoyable eagerness that feels adequately analog. The way it changes direction isn't necessarily what I'd call immediate or darty, but it's fluid and swift. Meanwhile, a bunch of little chassis improvements have indeed made the whole thing feel more focused.

Reinforcements have been added to the front core support and rear floor. The engine sits on high rigidity mounts, the steering receives a more solid rack insulator, and Nismo-tuned suspension boasts higher spring rates and damper forces all around. There are stiffer compression and T/V bushings up front while an additional rebound spring was given to the rear. Lateral rigidity is up 12.2% while torsional rigidity increases by 2.5%. This all results in a tangibly tighter, more serious-feeling vehicle not just in terms of ride but also in how it carries itself through undulating corners and elevation changes.

Thankfully, it isn't uncomfortable. The regular Z was already grand tourer-level comfy and while the Nismo's enhancements do move it closer to the sports car side of things, it isn't untenable at all as a potential daily driver.

The brakes are a Nismo component rocking bigger 15-inch front rotors with beefier calipers and different pad material. The upgrade here is also very evident, as the Nismo's left pedal responds with the immediacy and precision of a proper athlete without being overly twitchy or grabby. Very nice stoppers.

Between the stiffer chassis, stickier tires, and better brakes, a less talented car journalist would probably, at this juncture, take the opportunity to say some pseudo-poetic weeb shit about how Nissan has taken the katana that adorns the Z's roofline and sharpened it for battle. And, figuratively speaking, they'd be correct. Because this is a Japanese car, don'tchaknow. Hi-yah!

As talented a sushi chef the Nismo Z may be, we have to talk about the multiple elephants in the room. Let's start with the gearbox.

The nine-speed auto may be the only transmission available, but it has been improved. More clutch packs provide better heat resistance while upshifts are 27% quicker and downshifts are 50% quicker thanks to a physically shorter stroke between gears. The result is a gearbox that serves its purpose reasonably well and indeed swaps cogs with decent immediacy when left in auto mode. However, paddle-operated manual shifts still come with a bit too much latency for my liking, especially at low speeds.

Here's the thing about this transmission, though. While Nissan is hocking its decision to forego the manual as a creative call essentially justified by, "Well, this is The Fast One and the automatic is Faster," this particular automatic isn't quite fast enough to outweigh the joy that comes with shifting on your own. Some automatics are arguably good enough to do this. Porsche's PDK immediately comes to mind, as does ZF's eight-speed in certain applications. The Nissan Z's nine-speed, though? Nah, son, gimme that clutch pedal.

Another thing that will likely rile people up is the noise the Nismo Z makes—or perhaps, doesn't make. Setting off in this car for the first time, I immediately noticed that it was louder than the regular Z behind the wheel. It's a more tuneful, sonorous noise and in the Nismo-exclusive Sport+ driving mode, downshifts occasionally come with some nice crackles. Like a hip dad casually Shazaming the song that just started playing over the grocery store PA system, I thought to myself, "Hmm, this is nice, I wonder what exhaust is on this."

Turns out, what I was hearing had more in common with cookies-and-toilet-paper Top 40 than I realized. Per Nissan, the physical exhaust is completely unchanged from the standard Z and the enhanced audio I was hearing (even the crackling) was all being piped in through speakers. Yep, I was duped.

When it comes to straight-line pace, 20 more hp was never going to yield a night-and-day difference in terms of raw acceleration—and it does not, as far as my butt dyno's concerned—especially when you realize that the 3,704-pound Nismo Z is 102 pounds heavier than the automatic Performance-trim Z. To save you the math, that's a 5% power bump compensating for a 2.8% weight gain. A Nissan Z Superleggera this is not.

To be fair, though, the new Z—in Nismo form or otherwise—is not a car that is wanting for more power. Even on the long, sweeping bends of Sonoma Raceway, Nissan's rear-drive sports car is more than brisk, to say nothing of public roads.

It all adds up to a car that can be a genuine riot to drive. It's quick and appropriately visceral. It handles well. It holds up on track and it made me laugh on the street. From the back in particular, it looks extremely nice and—if you're able to ignore the fact that much of this is artificial—it even sounds kinda good, VQ haters be damned.

Here comes the third and final elephant in the room: price. Including destination, the new Nissan Z Nismo starts at $66,085. That's almost $13,000 more than the Performance-trim Z (that can be had with a manual, mind you) and a whole $22,780 more than the base Sport model.

Is 20 hp, forged wheels, stickier tires, Recaro seats, bigger front brakes, a stiffened chassis, and more aggressive fascias worth 13 grand? Actually, you know what? If you add up all of the line items and factor in engineering hours as well as good ol' fashioned profit margin, I can kind of start to see where Nissan pulled that number from.

Here's the thing, though. The new and patently fantastic Ford Mustang Dark Horse starts at $60,865, sits on fundamentally newer bones, makes a whole 80 more hp via two more liters and two more cylinders, and can be had with a gem of a Tremec manual transmission. 66 G's is also more than a BMW M2 and within step-on-the-back-of-your-shoes distance of the Chevy Corvette, which is mid-engined and also approaches 500 ponies. With all that in the back of your mind, the Nismo Z becomes quite a hard sell.

Look, the 2024 Nissan Z Nismo is a cool car. A 420-hp, rear-drive, unelectrified, two-door Nissan will never not be cool, that's just a fact, and I also felt cool hooning it. It is also, objectively, a good car. Capable, entertaining, reasonably livable, and noticeably racier-feeling than the pedestrian Z.

But the internet was right: On vibes alone, it feels at least $7,000 too expensive and it'd absolutely be so much better with a proper manual transmission. It's asking 25% more money than the regular Z Performance while not quite offering up 25% more car.

If you're willing to pony up, though, the Nismo Z is a nice treat. From the driver's seat, its appeal over the regular Z is what I am coining right now as “tangible intangibles.” Things you’ll only really experience behind the wheel, but won’t necessarily show up on a spec sheet. Things you feel through your fingertips, up your backside, and through the soles of your feet. Sharper-feeling steering, less lazy-feeling brakes, more special-feeling seats. Ironically, with so much of this car's selling proposition coming down to "feel," the fact that this vehicle is automatic-only appears even more perplexing.

All hope is not lost, though, because when I told a Nissan rep point blank that this car would be better with a manual, he said that given enough customer demand, a future three-pedaled Nismo Z is "not off the table."

Life is long. Opinions change. Circumstances change. Let's hope we all live long enough to see Nissan put the pineapple back onto this otherwise delicious slice of rear-wheel-drive pizza.

Got a tip or question for the author about the Nismo Z? You can reach him here: chris.tsui@thedrive.com