Dino DC: Nissan Gave Me a 400Z: Taking it on the Wangan!

Dino DC Video Transcript

Hey welcome to another episode and today we are down in Yokohama uh the Nissan Gallery this is the global headquarters for Nissan and uh they have a really cool display here today because they finally launched the face lifted R35 in the Japanese market so they have a nice display here Center Stage

With the original GTR the hakoska and uh the t-spec there’s no Nismo on display quite yet but I just wanted to have a little walk around just to kind of show you the gallery here this is the customized edition of the fair lady Z that was unveiled at the Tokyo Auto Salon earlier

This year so this is kind of hinting at what the customized Nismo version of the car will look like and what people can expect it to have like a carbon fiber spoiler and uh different wheels and of course the redesigned bumper and possibly they are 432 old s30z

Coloring so you get the black portion of the Bonnet and of course the orange racing color as we walk past this Heritage corner here which you know I’ll probably have to stop by here and do a much more in-depth kind of walk through the gallery it’s a very special place

I don’t have time today because I’m actually picking up this car so this is finally I get to drive the new Fair Lady Z the 400z it’s known in in other markets and what a dramatic way to pick the car up so I plan to keep this car for a week

And just drive it get to know it bring it to some really nice roads and just live with it so I hope you enjoy what I’ve got coming of this drive we’re very lucky with the weather today in central Yokohama here so uh let’s get in and enjoy the ride Foreign So I still have the fair lady Z and I thought today would do something a little bit different and me and my son Luca here who’s nine years old say hi Luca so we’re planning to just drop by Costco Japan and pick up some Necessities for

The family so it’ll be fun to see how this car is to kind of live in a you know day-to-day kind of kind of manner all right so I’ve I’ve used Luca as a cameraman hello so we just did a little bit of a pull and although the engine is nice and

Warm uh what do you think look we’ve got good good power yeah yeah it’s got a good torque right it pulls very hard in every gear so I’m in fourth now if I put it in six at 1500 RPM if I floor it the first already 0.5 just below 2 000

RPM boost is already a half a bar and it starts generating a decent amount of torque for six gear so you can literally use this car in three gears second fourth and six and it sort of reminds me of the Audi RS4 wagon we had that was a

Nice you know a high capacity Eva 4.5 4.2 liter V8 and I used to drive that car and like you know start off in seconds sometimes it just it just pulled there’s one issue that I’ve noticed with this car uh this transmission I I don’t

Know what it is it just feels a bit agricultural it’s very noisy it’s very notchy it’s not fast at all also because of the the way the throttle responds you can kind of try to go for a fast gear change but the revs drop so slowly

That it kind of uh you know makes you slow down Following this uh jzx 100 Mark II Grande 2.5 so these are these are like the oyaji spec or old man spec cars there’s not that many left because you know Drifters uh kind of took most of them Is that gonna fit in the fair lady in the Z what do you think a bit of Tetris all right let’s go get some food okay I can barely breathe after that hot dog but look insisted we get what pizza as well can you seriously eat that yeah

You’re gonna try I got this big beast okay so uh We’ve managed to fill up the new Z with a massive shopping trip from Costco obviously not as big as some people in the US would do it um but we’re done and you guys got to meet Luca bye Okay so uh this is my last night with a fair lady Z and uh just to kind of send it off uh I’ve decided to go out for a quick coffee run to daikoku parking area it’s a Tuesday night and I’m not really sure if we’re

Going to find much but uh even if we’re not it’s it’s mainly to get this last Drive in um and and kind of like give some conclusions to what I feel about this uh rz34 as it’s uh as it’s called chassis wise I have to say I’m slightly disappointed but also quite

Impressed in the fact that yes it is based on a on an older chassis it’s been uh reskin with a really nice body design wise I don’t really mind it I would love to see the aftermarket do something with a front bumper I’m not really a great fan of the massive gaping rectangular

Mouth but you know after visiting advance and seeing what they’ve done with their demo car what power they’ve gotten out of it with simple ECU tuning and an exhaust the thing that makes me happiest about this car is the fact that it’s a great platform to start tuning from so with the

With a three liter twin turbo V6 you have potential for you know 600 plus horsepower easily as soon as the market kind of supports that here in Japan and uh design wise I’m sure there’ll be a ton of aftermarket uh body upgrades carbon Parts you know different accents and of course Wheels

From my experience driving this car I have to say it’s more geared towards being a comfortable GT Cruiser it’s not a very uh you know pin sharp sports car like the GTR is and it was never supposed to be in the first place it’s definitely kind of creating that GT

Cruiser feel very comfortable very easy to live with I even did a Costco trip with my son and we managed to fit everything in the trunk so it’s a great all-rounder I would love to kind of feel what a few slight upgrades would do to this car I would really kind of

Probably the first thing I would do personally would be a clutch because I don’t like the way this manual transmission feels with the current OEM clutch so a lighter flywheel something a bit snappier and engagement something that maybe lets go lower down on the pedal that would get a little bit more

Feel through the the whole car and the Driveline an LSD to kind of wrap things up at the back a decent suspension I’ve noticed extreme wheel hop when you start spinning the tires and try to get the car sideways it is pretty smooth and Progressive but at the same time it definitely lacks

A little bit of finesse when it comes to Geometry so I would spend a lot of time kind of fixing up that side of things engine wise I think this engine is going to respond very well to modifications um you know just to kind of get that

Extra 20 percent of the oems always kind of leave for safety and reliability The interior this St model as it sold and cold here in Japan not really what I would go for I would probably go for the S which kind of gives you the more run-of-the-mill seeds I would want to kind of replace those with something after market something a bit more supportive with a

Bit more kind of like uh you know a bit more support basically um but yeah I mean I Come Away excited for for what tuners are going to be doing with this car I’m sure you know shops like top secret Advanced and you know a ton more are going to be doing

Great things with it um I’m sure traction control will have to kind of be taken into the equation with kind of aftermarket ecu’s because uh when you start pushing 600 plus horsepower through the rear wheels it’s going to get sketchy pretty fast so um you know I I’m really impressed I’m

Really happy that this car exists um I would love to kind of build my own maybe that’s something we can kind of think about in the future but um the only thing I want to really try is the automatic version there’s a nine speed Auto available too that will be

One of the next cars I borrow from Nissan just a few of that is like um it’ll probably be even easier to live with in you know Tokyo traffic but you know big thumbs up to Nissan they’ve done a great job the car looks amazing I’ve been getting an amazing

Amount of feedback from people something that doesn’t really happen in Japan often because people tend to be quite quiet uh but I’ve had people come up to me and ask if this is the new Z how did I get it so big and stuff like that lots of positivity there so

Um I was just uh kind of looking forward to see what the aftermarket is going to do with it foreign Here we are at daikoku parking area on a Tuesday night and it’s this fall you really never can kind of predict what you’re going to find a daikoko so uh we’ll take a quick coffee break and uh head back up on the wangan okay this is sort of embarrassing as an Italian to

Drink coffee like this but what are you gonna do [Applause] oh yeah Foreign Foreign So I hope you enjoyed this uh slightly different video and let me know in the comments what you thought Thank you