With a better alignment and tire selection, it may not even need a bump in power. But i would love to see an extra 30lbs of torque, to give that fear of being uncontrollable at the limit while in a corner. :tup:

Thought I'd add some interesting stats regarding the debate on price or the economic situation regarding the sales of Z's. This is not scientific and the models may or have changed during this period, so derive from it what you want. I picked these years because the American economy began it's slide in 2007, so 2006 was the last good full year. I chose 2009 also because the stock market stopped it's slide. Numbers are from goodcarbadcar.net

US Sales only.
Nissan Z 2006 - 24,635, 2009 - 13,117, 2012 - 7,338
Corvette 2006 - 36,518, 2009 - 13,934, 2012 - 14,132
Cayman 2006 - 7,025, 2009 - 1,966, 2012 - 462
Audi TT 2006 - 954, 2009 - 1,935, 2012 2,226

One anomaly noticed, Audi TT Year 2007 - 4,356, Year 2008 - 4486

You can buy this car right now. It's called the Hyundai Veloster. Ewwww. Come on Nissan, you can do much better than that.

http://i.imgur.com/reVC9Qm.png

This article seems suspect but Nissan could stay on the track of competing with Porsche and BMW instead of FRS/BRZ. 350 HP won't cut it either.

Sure, why not? How much is a base Corvette? Can you think of a modern muscle car that weighs close to 3100 lbs? So yes, I would pay that much for that kind of a Z.

Would absolutely LOVE to see them pick up the DCT and throw the tranny in back like the GTR. They could change nothing else but those two things and I would jump on it in a heart beat. They could even leave on the 2013 front fascia.

I'll pass on the DCT, but the transaxle would be great. The problem is the cost of something like that. People are already complaining that the Z isn't a great value at $35-45k. Adding something like that would cost quite a bit of money, especially when you have so few sales to amortize the costs over. And then it would be too close to the GTR, Nissan's halo car. They won't let that happen. It's the same reason the Cayman will never get as good of an engine as a 911. Car manufacturers don't want to cannibalize halo car sales.

Unlike most. I don't compare the Z with muscle cars. I believe Z capability against muscle cars is nice but should be an afterthought. The porsche cayman with chrono pkg should be the benchmark.
Before i think of what other car companies are doing. I think of where the Z originated from and its philosophy of use. (For all you TNP'ers out there. lol) From there i think of the car Nissan chooses to benchmark. From there i make in my head a parameter of expectations where mustangs and corvettes don't come into play.

Now if the end result is, the Z could hang with the muscle cars??? Kewl beans. I got more than I expected. But I'm looking at a car called the cayman when i consider my parameters.

I believe people who deeply desire muscle car performance should just go ahead and purchase muscle cars. :tup:

If they would give us a better MT, I would be ok without the DCT, but I am just so jaded against their ability to do that.

However, considering the Z uses a shared platform, if the other vehicles sell decently, I could see switch to a transaxle as not moving the needle too terribly much on pricing. Could be entirely wrong though. Especially if the other cars are not selling well and if switching to transaxle will mess up too much with those other vehicles.

Still....dare to dream. :D

The 911 is a huge range of configurations from 85k - 180k starting price. Porsche probably makes money on each and every one.

Nissan has 2 sports cars not making them any money right now. Nissan needs the Z to have more range by keeping the base model in the 30k area and then a true high performance model in the 50-55k area. The NISMO model needs more than marginally better performance. It needs another engine choice.

I don't have a problem with my 6mt, but I seem to be in the minority here on that one. Either Nissan would have to redesign the shared platform to accept a transaxle, or the Z would have to be a one-off. Both of those are prohibitively expensive, especially for a car selling <10k units a year. The best we can hope for mechanically is moving to DI and adding some torque/mpg that way, and cutting back on the weight. Anything beyond that seems pretty unikely.

Right, but a $70k Cayman with the 991 motor would draw sales from the $85k 911. That's the point I was trying to make.

I agree that the Nismo needs to be more special, but I don't think any scenario where the Z ends up in the $55k range works. That's pretty much what killed the 300ZX. Splitting the line for two very different models is a huge risk for a vehicle that sells so few units. I don't see Renault taking that kind of a risk.

What is more risky - offering the same model with different levels at different price points or introducing another model - a.k.a a BRZ competitor. I think the magic formula is to find a way to take the next Z down in weight a little and stock power and compete with the BRZ/FRS while also having a superior engine/trim option for a high end car. Continue to share the high end engine with the G/Q sister car.

The biggest risk is to turn out a slightly refreshed model that does nothing for sales - the 370z effect.

I'm going to go ahead and say this about the 911 argument. They have been making the 911 since the 60s. It takes time to build something where you can have that kind of lineup yet still be profitable. Really not a fair argument there. Porsche is a sports car brand that has been building sports cars for decade.

Nissan/Infiniti is, well, a grab bag where the business model isn't nearly the same as a company like Porsche. They're mass producing vehicles. Porsche isn't. The GT-R is a halo car that can get away with not necessarily making a profit. It is meant to serve as an attention-getter for the brand meant gather profit in a more indirect way. What they've done with the GT-R is nothing short of remarkable, and I guarantee you it has gotten Porsche's attention.

As far as the Z, the 370 is a victim of circumstance in the grand scheme of things in a great many ways (rough economy, competition). I really don't want to beat the dead horse here - we just need to see if Nissan is serious about their legacy vehicle. The Z is the icon for the brand, as we shall see if it gets proper love.

If they decide to do that, they might as well kill the base trim of the Z altogether and move it upmarket. Bring back the 240sx to compete with the Toyobaru. Then you hit both market segments. Build it off the same platform to save costs.

Or, keep the car pretty much the same and buy a **** ton of advertising in the car mags. That's usually enough to get it to be the winner of all the comparison tests.