The bad:

The thing is indeed hilariously impractical. The hoops I’ve had to jump through to transport stuff… (often involving leaving the hatch open like some kind of pickup :)

Visibility indeed sucks… I guess you learn to compensate by looking around more.

Most punishing car I have ever driven on bad commuter roads. Don’t get a Z unless you’re willing to suffer some for your sporty intentions.

The neutral:

People bitch a lot about the interior, I don’t find it too bad (having the leather seats helps :). Yes, it is plasticy, but it has a consistent stylish modern look about it, which I much prefer to most car interiors (why do 99% of cars still have the same interior styling as 10 years ago?).

Weight: I have driven my gf’s Miata plenty, so I do know what light feels like, but I can’t say I find it an issue compared to most cars. This car has very little body roll and excellent suspension (for sporty driving, not for potholes) so it feels nimbler than it is because it is so planted. I compared it on the same twisty roads vs a mustang GT, which feels like a wobbly mess in comparison.

The good:

the power is addicting.. very torquey, an absolute rocket on the street. Can’t imagine you’d need more power on the street than this without it becoming lethal (though on the track I could use 10-20% more).

The best:

The handling… this thing is beautifully easy to play around with. I have had this thing on the track 10 or so events by now, and once you get comfortable with it, it just begs to be throttle steered, which is absolutely orgasmic, and pretty easy/safe to maintain. Add to that the very planted suspension (I hate body roll), good weight balance, LSD, and very direct and hefty precision steering.

I figure if everyone bought sports cars based solely on benchmark numbers vs dollar value, nobody would buy European sports cars.

Houston’s roads are better by far than NO or MI. New Orleans is built on squishy wetlands, and Michigan’s winters seem to do a number on the roads. They’re different kinds of bad, but both worse by far than Houston. I have no complaints about the ride on my Z on any of them. (I’m mid-late 20’s for reference.)

I test drove the Z against (07s all) Mustang GT, RX-8, and a VW R32. I was coming from an 02 Nissan Sentra SE-R, btw. I definitely couldn’t afford a Vette. It was at least $10k out of my price range.

Using the ol’ butt dyno, the Z felt fastest. The RX-8 was slightly more nimble, but its mileage was not reflected in its acceleration. The Mustang felt heavy and less eager to turn in comparison to the Z and no faster, perhaps slightly slower. The R32 felt between the Z and the Mustang in terms of handling, but also lacked somewhat in power. The dual-clutch gearbox was great, though.

Storage was a requirement, and my main thing was to be able to fit my Mac tower. The R32 shined here, of course. The RX-8 barely fit it, and the Z also barely fit it. It was also a squeeze to get it through the tiny trunk opening in the mustang, though the trunk had decent room as a whole. After getting the Z, I moved to MI, bringing about the equivalent of a dorm room’s worth of stuff. I also had a (very lovely) passenger in the other seat. It’s pretty surprising what you can stuff in the hatch, actually.

Overall, I’m very happy with my purchase, I rather pined for it when it was in the shop for 2 days, and I get lots of compliments on it even in a domestically biased SE Michigan.

Conservative estimates peg the power of a VH45 “around 300hp”, I know of one flywheel dyno test that showed 320 on a bone stock VH.

Now there’s a statistically significant sample size. [eyes rolling, in case you were wondering]

There are hundreds of Vettes down here in Houston belonging to the sub 40 crowd that I personally know of. The companies that sell ported heads, cams, blowers and turbos have to have a market to sell to somewhere, right?

I honestly can’t recall the last time I saw someone under 40 in a Vette or over 40 in a 350Z. Of the several dozen of each in my small town, they all follow that rule. Why are we all talking about acceleration and styling when the clear and obvious difference between them is the age of the driver?

Someone will find one example of a young ‘Vette driver and claim that I am wrong, but the numbers are a thousand to one. Old men drive their ‘Vettes on weekends, and young men (and women) drive their 350Zs to their entry level engineering position Monday through Friday. That’s what I see everyday, anyway. And for the record, I am closer to being a 50 year old balding ‘Vette owner than a young Z owner, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

When they don’t have to deal with the whims of consumers, engineers are generally very reluctant to reinvent things. While Boeing’s 707 has been out of production for a long time, they still make 737s, and are still developing a new version of the 747. It’s proven technology, and almost all of the flaws have been eliminated. They started from scratch on the 787 because it uses technology that simply couldn’t be incorporated in to an existing design.

Now, granted, the state of the art changes a lot faster for cars than it does for planes, but the Z is clearly still a competitive design, and until the high-end technology is cheap enough for this price range, I can hardly see why a new platform is needed.

Styling is ephemeral, of course, but that’s got nothing to do with engineering.

PS… if you think the C5Z hit 130 quick….come down and try mine with a blower on it!

I’ve hung out in Memphis for the Liberty Bowl (UH lost, I was pissed) and your roads obviously don’t have the quicksand-esque (i.e. clay) foundation of ours. :)

How about this: compared to the softly sprung Mustang GT, the Z’s ride is significantly worse. That said, it doesn’t bother me. It’s perfectly acceptable if you know why you bought a sports car in the first place.

Nissan 350Z Corvette
Curb Weight – Automatic (lb.) 3212.1 3179.1
Wheelbase (in.) 104.3 105.8 Length (in.) 169.4 174.6
Width (in.) 71.5 72.6
Height (in.) 51.9 49

I think the point of the previous poster was comparing to new cars, with a similar price point. The corvette is huge!

cough…2 yr old Corvette…cough….21 cu ft hatch…