By: Thomas Geiger
Munich - Nissan is not the first car brand to come to mind when the talk turns to sports cars. The Japanese maker is better known for bread-and butter models that rarely fire the imagination.
Not so the Nissan 300 ZX Twin Turbo. This seductive wedge is a box of technical tricks with dazzling performance. The car was a blend of brawn and brain that could embarrass both Porsche and Chevrolet Corvette owners.
A band of loyal followers in Germany has never lost interest in this collectable street racer and pristine surviving examples are cherished.
“Drive a 300 ZX and you will never want to be without one again,” said Klaus Amann of Munchen who runs Germany's Z and ZX Club for enthusiasts.
The Nissan encountered scepticism when it entered European showrooms with the 300 ZX in 1990. The car was a completely re-designed fourth-generation version of the original Z-car, which had first broken cover in October 1969.
Apart from the Toyota 3000 GT, which featured in a James Bond film, Japan had produced little in the way of heady sports cars compared with Italy, Britain and Germany.
Well what could be expected from a grid-locked country with a blanket highway top speed of 120 kilometres per hour, the scoffers thought.
MONSTROUS PERFORMANCE
The two-seater 300 ZX made the competition sit up and listen, in particular to the beguiling howl from its twin turbos linked to dual intercoolers.
The set-up cut turbo-lag to a minimum before the 300 horses (224kW) came rushing in and the Nissan shot from a standing start to 100 km/h in 5.9 seconds. Top speed was pegged electronically at 250 km/h.
Impressive stats at a time when a stock Porsche 911 managed 184kW and a Chevy Corvette weighed in with 172kW.
The Nissan was handicapped by its hefty 1.7 tons of kerb weight, but road-holding was excellent, thanks to a four-wheel independent suspension, two-position cockpit, adjustable shock absorbers and a four-wheel steering system.
The system dubbed High Capacity Actively Controlled Steering or HICAS moves the rear wheels up to one degree, depending on speed, angle of the steering wheel angle, and the speed the wheel is turning.
The Z coupe's hatchback body style enabled a degree of load-lugging and the roof could be either solid or a T-top design with removable panels.
PRAISED IN THE WEST
German car testers are notorious for turning up their noses at the foreign competition, but the magazine Sport Auto admitted grudgingly: “The only thing wrong with the Nissan 300 ZX Twin Turbo is the place where it was born. The birth certificate should read Zuffenhausen (the home of Porsche) and not Tokyo, Japan.”
This was at a time when US car magazine Road & Track called the 300 ZX Turbo “One of the Ten Best Cars in the World.”
Klaus Amman enthuses about the Nissan's handling, but is not blind to the car's faults. “The engines are very sensitive” and neglected cars often need a lot of tender loving care, he said. Generally speaking, the ZX is a car for enthusiasts and not regular commuting duties.
A well-looked-after example can still be bought in Germany for between 5000 and 10 000 euros (under 6000 dollars). Many others have been driven hard and prices are not yet high enough to promise a profit from extensive renovation.
These days the typical Nissan 300 ZX driver is more likely to be a pipe-smoking connoisseur than a metal-to-the floor tearaway.
In Amman's eyes, none of the contemporary European sports machinery can compete with his beloved Nissan.
“No sports car offers this level of driving pleasure for the money, not a Porsche, a Jaguar or even a Ferrari,” he said.
DPA