http://www.motortrend.com/future/future_vehicles/1207_nissan_working_on_mini_z_to_target_frs_brz/

Not too crazy about the styling, but I do like that Nissan is going back to small affordable fun quality cars!

Edited July 27, 201212 yr by theczechone

No,this mini Z does nothing for me, I will keep my current 72 Z and my DD 2012 FIAT 500 Sport

The "styling" means nothing. It's a Motor Trend artist's guess at what it might look like. I love the idea of a smaller AND lighter sports car. The 370 is too heavy. and expensive for big sales numbers.

Front wheel drive? Why not just buy a Civic?

Yeah I skimmed the article with excitement, and didn't read carefully. I read that it was suppose to compete with the FR-S so I assumed it would be rear wheel drive. I'd really like nissan to come out with a proper fun to drive inexpensive sports car just like the Z was back in the 70s, the FR-S is damn near all that, only reason i didn't buy it when I was shopping for a new car, is that I just moved north, have 0 experience driving in snow and did not want to compound that with rear wheel drive.

  theczechone said:

I just moved north, have 0 experience driving in snow and did not want to compound that with rear wheel drive.

Rear wheel drive cars, including Zs for the last 40+ years, have been driving in snow for a little over 100 years without too much difficulty. I think you would have been OK with an FR-S

Dennis

wish you had told me that a couple of weeks ago everyone told me i should get fwd or awd around here, I know it's not bad for a decent driver, perhaps I was overly cautious. Plus the car I bought is boring enough to where I won't want to put money into it, meaning the Z fund is going to be larger!

  psdenno said:

Rear wheel drive cars, including Zs for the last 40+ years, have been driving in snow for a little over 100 years without too much difficulty. I think you would have been OK with an FR-S

Dennis

Big words spoken from the So Cal Desert, two years ago we had two back to back 24"+ snow storms, I couldn't even see my Z for 3 weeks. You should at least have access to a 4WD if you live in the northern part of the country. BTW, the dog is on top of the car in that pic.

Edited July 27, 201212 yr by 5thhorsemann

Now I'm sure most of you have seen winter footage taken in Portland Oregon where SUVs by the bunch are sliding and crashing with the brakes on turning them into hockey pucks.

In years past when I had to drive across eastern Washington to Spokane, invariably, anything off the road on on their tops were AWD.

But no, not excited about FWD in a MiniZ and too much light weight drivetrain stuff for AWD.

Well, any car whether it's 4wd or 2wd, fwd or rwd will slide when one locks up the brakes, i think the idea of using a fwd or awd car in the cold weather conditions is that understeer is easily predicted compared to over steer and one can do more to prevent it. Even thou oversteer is easier to correct.

Growing up in Alaska, After the first big snowfall most of the cars ditched were 4WD. Yes they get you up the ice hills but stop way slower due to there wieght. My 260z was a blast in the snow!

I got a fwd, light, low center of gravity car .