Nissan Z 400Z Proto Revealed With Manual Gearbox And Twin-Turbo V6 Engine

Alex HarringtonSeptember 16, 2020

3 minutes read

The Nissan Z Proto reveal is here. Here we’ll be updating you on everything we learn from the live stream as we hear it from Nissan. To get the latest, please refresh this page.

Table of Contents

1:22

Waiting for the digital unveiling to start. Make sure you read this to get up to date on everything we know about the new Z.

1:30

The reveal begins with each generation of Z car, and straight away we see the bright yellow Z prototype. It has a very large air intake on its front bumper and retro styling with a long bonnet.

Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida discusses his love for the Z cars.

“The Z, as a pure sports car, represents the spirit of Nissan,” he says.

“The look of this is close to final, and the feel has been engineered for aerodynamics and body rigidity.”

1:37

Twin-turbo V6 with a six-speed manual transmission is confirmed.

“We want your drive to be powerful, exciting, and engaging.”

It’s certainly the best looking Z so far in my opinion, taking design cues from the 240Z for sure,l but also the 300Z as confirmed by Makoto Uchida.

1:40

We’re now passed onto someone with bad jokes and we’re shown the audience which is made up of Z owners sat in their cars flashing their lights and sounding their horns.

1:45

Talking through the Z’s strong history and being treated to even more bad jokes. A Q&A session is coming soon according to the presenter.

Now, a walk around the car:

A long bonnet and low slung cabin was wanted from the beginning. The highest point of the bonnet was engineered to be higher than the rear edge of the back of the car. They wanted a low centre of gravity, and they were able to do that by lowering the rood. They’ve also introduced a katana sword design that follows the curve of the roof in silver.

Personally, the cabin looks slightly too far forward, but I’m very quickly getting used to it. It looks incredibly muscly for such a sleek car. The white tyre writing helps!

Inside is very modern with a digital gauge cluster behind the steering wheel and a large infotainment system in the centre. There are also three individual gauges in the centre of the dash.