Remember the Nissan Z? Just a few years ago, it was one of the most-hyped sports cars out there. Ahead of launch, the automotive masses were excited for Nissan to finally replace the ancient 370Z and stunt on the poorly-received Mk V Toyota Supra. And yet, here we stand, two years hence, and it seems like there are barely any out on the roads. Sales are slow, and that means one thing—prices are going down.
On paper, the new Z was supposed to give us everything we wanted. It had a sleek modern design with a bit of retro flair. It had turbos and 400 horsepower. It was rear-wheel-drive. And of course, it came with a manual transmission. It seemed like Nissan was doing everything right, but somehow, the model failed to connect. It hit the market with scarce supply and with many dealers chasing hefty markups amid the hype.
At first, you virtually couldn’t get one. Now, it seems nobody wants one. Dealers are growing tired of sitting on these pricy new sports cars, and they’re slashing prices in turn.
Unloved
Read the numbers from CarEdge, and you’ll quickly see the problem. Right now, there are 2,091 Nissan Zs on sale across the country. That might not sound like a lot, but Nissan has only sold 269 examples in the last 45 days. That means there are currently enough Zs on the market to last for almost a whole year—a total of 350 days of supply.
Right now, there are lovely Japanese sports cars languishing on dealer lots. Cars that don’t move don’t make dealers money, so they want them gone. That means cash on the hood—it’s a buyer’s market here.
If you’re buying at the bottom of the Z market, you’ll be looking at the Sport trim. It gets you a 400-horsepower twin-turbo V6 with 350 pound feet of torque, and it’ll sprint to 60 mph in under 5 seconds, whether you get the auto or the manual. As the cheapest model, it doesn’t attract the biggest discounts, but there are still real savings to be had.
Head over to Central Houston Nissan in Texas, and you can find this 2024 Nissan Z Sport with the 9-speed automatic for just $39,290—a discount of over $5,000 versus MSRP. St. Charles Nissan in Missouri has a similar deal, too, currently listed for just $39,900. If you want a manual, head over to Bellingham Nissan in Washington, they’ve slashed $5,000 off MSRP as well.
If you’re a serious enthusiast, though, you might prefer the Performance trim. It’s better kitted out for hard driving, with upgraded brakes and suspension. It’s also got a proper limited-slip differential which makes all the difference if you’re thinking of taking it out on track. It’s also the most popular model in the lineup, so stock is easy to find.
If you head over to Nissan Andalusia in Alabama, you can find a couple of nice automatic examples for over $8,000 off at just $46,000. Kenosha Nissan in Wisconsin has a similar deal, too. A manual will likely cost you a little more. Right now, Clay Cooley Nissan in Texas has one up for $47,483—around $5000 under MSRP. Meanwhile, down in Florida, Lokey Nissan lowkey has a higher-specced three-pedal Z for $7,761 under MSRP. It’s been kicking around for over 115 days and the dealer wants it gone. Either that or they’re just feeling generous, I guess.
As for the Z NISMO, it sits at the top of the tree. It ups the engine output to 420 horsepower and 385 pound-feet of torque. It also scores wider tires, forged wheels, bigger brakes, Recaro seats, and further suspension upgrades. It’ll do zero to 60 mph in just 3.9 seconds. It’s intended to be the track weapon of the Z lineup.
You might think that these are too special to be discounted, but you’d be dead wrong, bucko. The Z NISMO starts at $66,890 including $1,140 of shipping and handling fees, and that’s before options. However, you can find them for under $60,000 if you know where to look.
The cheapest I could find was this 2024 Nissan Z NISMO at Old Orchard Nissan in Illinois, at $8,793 under MSRP. Having been listed all the way back in May, the dealer got serious about discounting this thing in September, and it’s still sitting around two months later. It looks killer in black with the red NISMO trim, and it’s equipped with the 9-speed automatic transmission.
There are even deeper discounts out there if you look around, albeit on more highly-optioned models. Lorenzo Nissan has an automatic for almost $9,000 off, while Premiere Nissan in West Virginia has one for a full $10,000 discount at just $58,645. Little surprise given it’s been on the lot for almost a year. Sadly, there are no NISMO manuals out there—Nissan built this model in automatic only.
Boat? Missed.
It’s been interesting to follow the tale of the Nissan Z. Ahead of launch, it seemed like it was going to be an absolute barnstormer. Nissan had given it plenty of grunt and the all-important manual, and it seemed like it was going to do everything right that Toyota had done so wrong with the launch of the Supra.
When the reviews rolled in, many were positive, if a little down on the Z as an out-and-out sports car. L2S-FBC noted the Supra had the edge in handling and style, while Drive.com.au called it “too quiet.” Car and Driver noted the car was not a “budget world-beater” like previous generations. The review also questioned how much of an update it really was. “There’s too much 370Z in the new Z,” wrote Dan Edmunds. “This was not the seismic shift we were hoping for.”
Nissan Dealer Defends a $60,000 Mark Up on the New Z
byu/ishliss incars
Nissan topped off the mixed reception with production delays and limited availability. Throw in dealers hungry to cash in on the hype with big markups, and you had the perfect storm. It wasn’t long before people were wondering why you weren’t seeing a whole lot of new Z cars out on the road.
Fast forward to today. Production of the Z has outstripped demand, but a good deal of that seems to be because demand has all but dried up. Nissan built a turbo, manual, rear-wheel-drive sports car that was pretty okay, but then completely failed to sell them to people at the peak of the hype.
Some dealers have tried to make the best of a bad situation, connecting die-hard fans with good deals when times were tough. We even spoke to ‘Nismo Nick’, the man who made it his personal mission to get these cars in the right hands. Overall, though, the Z just hasn’t found a way to succeed in the marketplace.
In a decade, we’ll be writing a post about how the Nissan Z is an “unappreciated gem” and one of the last true turbo manual sports cars. We’ll question why it never caught on, much like we did with the return of the Supra. After all, enthusiasts were clamoring for a repeat of the JDM glory days, right? They wanted their heroes back. And yet, when those heroes returned, they realized that glory days aren’t so easy to come by.
Images: Cars.com, Nissan
At $45k, this is a killer deal for a gt car. Test drove the manual performance trim a couple months ago and was not disappointed, except the sticker price being asked at the time. Interior is surprisingly upscale and the power is sublime. Had the price been right, I’d have seriously considered adding it to my garage.
I can’t think of a single way this car beats a Mustang, including looks, even after the big discounts. The one advantage, the manual transmission, was barely available, and not at all available on the most interesting one.
Who wouldn’t take a Mustang Dark Horse with a 500 horsepower, 418 lb-ft torque Coyote V8, a Magneride suspension and a six speed Tremec over a Nismo Z for only about $2000 more?
The market of Nissan fanbois is tapped out. There’s much better value pretty much everywhere you look.
I know that they were just discontinued but I was thinking the same thing about the Camaro. I know they’re different styles, but value proposition is hard to beat.
Owner here. Just had to chime in with some reasoning for it. With so many cars available that match or beat it on performance it’s most down to subjective measures like look, feel, history with the car. I think the design sets it apart, it remains striking, the front absolutely works better in person. If you had a previous gen or in this case my father did, it has a certain fondness that isn’t had in a BMW or Mustang. If you don’t plan on swapping it anytime soon and enjoying a turbo, manual, rear drive car in 20 years the initial overpay isn’t so bad. That said, if they had followed up the early rumors of a 35 grand base Z with a new engine it would have completely changed the narrative for this car and Nissan.
“ Nissan built a turbo, manual, rear-wheel-drive sports car that was pretty okay, but then completely failed to sell them to people at the peak of the hype.”
So, basically they built the opposite of the kind of car the overwhelming majority of people actually buy.
They seemed to have built a slower, fatter, non convertible Miata.
Old Orchard Nissan and their sister dealers are the scummiest scammy ones I’ve ever worked with. They have a ton of off-brand cars that are bought off auction for low listed prices to get you in from all over the country, but are so full of BS when you get there that I flew back home instead.
The teaser shots, the advertising implications, and the design concepts implied this was going to be the Fairlady 240Z reborn. The implication being: lightweight, affordable, great handling.
What we got was a warmed over 370Z, with dealer markups on top of it.
No wonder it didn’t sell.
Username checks out. Also, spot on about the warmed over 370z. It’s like they hid it under a body kit and added some boost.
I STILL haven’t seen one, and there are sports and exotic cars galore in Tampa Bay.
All I’m hearing is that the market confirms that these were priced too high for what they were. When the Nismo is as much as an M2, no one is going to buy the Nismo
Crack pipe. This bloated thing weighs almost 2 tons. Give us a svelte, lithe Z that harkens back to the Z cars of the past, with a modern engine, a lot less bells and whistles, lose that stupid oversized grille and wheels(those tires shouldn’t be delicate/expensive rubber bands, they should have thick, meaty sidewalls), and a lower price to come with the feature/component reduction, and then I’d consider it. Measured in lbs, that curb weight should have a 2 in front of it. And it better be manual.
I shall join you in waving our canes at the sky
We know you Toecutter. There is no way you would desire a modern z car. Now if we gave you a Datsun z car with no powertrain and a tesla motor, you would go nuts with joy.
I’d settle for a tuned TB48DE into a smaller, cleaned up Z that dispenses with the BS and bloat. They could be building a 500+ horsepower sub-3,000 lb car with a big inline-6, small and agile enough to corner with the supercars, and at an affordable price. Imagine a shrunken, much more narrow GT-R with a proportionally longer hood hiding an inline-6, that lost over 1,000 lbs, coming in at somewhere around the low $30k price point. It doesn’t need any more features other than heat/AC and a radio. Buttons for everything, standard. Roll-up windows, standard. Manual transmission, standard. Make it like the original 240Z in shape, but curvier in the front with a focus on drag reduction, and a grill no larger than needed to cool the engine.
This thing needs to be about hot, nasty, badass speed, at an affordable price, with minimized operator expenses and maintenance for the application. Have the fun maneuverability of a Miata, drive it like a Corolla as a daily with comparable expenses and perhaps superior fuel economy, yet be able to also go trolling for Vipers and C7 Corvettes.
There is nothing preventing such a car today, but no one makes it. A simple, honest, affordable, no-bullshit, go-fast machine that still remains easy on the wallet and remains easy to fix and source parts for once it’s a classic. Everything the current Z is not, but which the original was highly praised and prized for being.
Not surprised about the discounts but I’d argue it’s too little too late. I’ve seen one Z in person since launch (that bright yellow-green color), yet multiple Hummer EVs and Cybertrucks. Heck, the local liquor store owner has a new Supra so I drive past it almost every day. Nissan dealerships charged too much for the car and scared any potential clients into looking elsewhere.
Edit: I’ve also seen 2 GR Corollas in person, so that makes the fact I’ve seen only one Z really unfortunate.
I was in the market for this type of vehicle very recently. I, initially, forgot about the Z entirely. I’ve only ever seen TWO in person since they launched. Local dealer has one in the showroom and they still want over $50k for it. I passed and ordered a GR86. I don’t really care about the horsepower, I want something small and fun that I can toss around, but larger than a Miata. The Z just doesn’t do it for me.
I like the looks and the dated mechanicals don’t really bother me.
What does twist my knickers are the weight and price. Even with $10k on the hood, it is still an expensive porker.
Nissan seems like they can fail at just about every market segment these days.
The original 240Z was $3500 when it came out. That’s about $29,000 in today’s money.
The new Z came out around $44,000. If they had gone back to the original formula of light, simple, cheap, beautiful, and fun, they wouldn’t have been able to keep them on dealer lots.
The greatest tragedy is that the lesson Nissan learns won’t be “make simple great cars at good prices,” it will be “no one wanted a sports car.”
You just described the Miata, of which Mazda sold 9000 last year.
Seems like that might have been an improvement…
Car people love to write extensive theories about how the entire automotive market would be saved forever if “X” company just built their idea of a perfect car. They will then proceed to describe either the Miata or GR86, both of which probably sold in the hundreds of examples combined in the last month.
THIS. It’s a classic case of “who is this for?”. They’re not reviving this after decades as a premium car for boomers. The previous gen is still ubiquitous and popular among young drivers. Sending the message that the new Nissan Z (which is still pretty similar to the old) is now an exclusive product for the well-heeled will get you nowhere.
I’ve seen exactly one of these in the wild, and it sure was pretty. But man are the expensive for what they are! Even discounted, I don’t know …
Yeah I’ve still yet to see one and man the fact that every single one above is in a boring color just makes me sad! Give me orange and yellow and blue on this thing!
Thankfully the one I saw was yellow!
Most of the ones I have seen driving and at dealers here are boring colors, mostly grey and black. I have seen a few heritage edition orange, two blue, and a yellow at dealers but they are in the minority.
The rarest color is by far the base purple-red, non two tone. I haven’t seen a single one at dealers or in the wild. It’s a beautiful color and probably my favorite.
It was overpriced as it was at launch, and then the absurd dealer mark ups killed any momentum before it could go anywhere.
This. The market got scared by the huge mark ups and it killed the hype, therefore Nissan lost a lot of potential customers.
Clearly they haven’t been able to get back most of those customers judging by the huge mark downs, and most Americans perceive the economy to be rough and that doesn’t help with sales as well.
People are getting more and more fed up with this type of markup/ massive types of greed. There are more and more of us willing to say “go fuck yourself, my old model of X,Y and Z is just fine”.
Now, if people see you driving one of these, you are an assumed total idiot for paying 20k over on it. Even if you got it at a steal, no one will be thinking you did. Its a no-go for anyone who cares about what other people think (most people and especially sport car drivers) for at least the next 5 years. And by then, it won’t even be remembered. Maybe in 30 years it will get traction as a classic with very few examples around.
Nissan dealers are not happy in general, and I expect most to close in the next 5-10 years if it even takes that long.
I have seen exactly one of these in the wild, and it had dealer plates on it, so I can’t even claim to have seen one that someone actually owned. It looked good, but the prices on these are, as others have noted, at least $10k too high – and at least $15k too high for the NISMO trim. A good value would have made these move, albeit not in Mustang- or Miata-level numbers, but still made them worth seeking out. But at the prices Nissan is asking, demand just isn’t there. As a former Z31 owner, that disappoints me.
But why pay 50K for a worse Miata?
If you think of the Z as more of a grand tourer, it makes a bit more sense (as a Miata owner and former 350z owner).
Bad decision maker and Z32 (300zx) and Z33 (350z) owner here. I’ll probably be buying one of these soon. Why? Good question.
– I don’t mind the shared parts from the Z33 and Z33.2 (370z.) there’s a few I immediately noticed from my car but it’s not a dealbreaker.
– Those mark downs are tasty, even if the car is still somewhat overpriced
– It’s beautiful, I prefer the styling over the Supra and Gr86. The gaping maw doesn’t bother me all that much.
– I’ve heard it’s a better daily driver compared to the other sport cars for sale currently, especially the Supra. This is important as I live in an area with rough roads. I’d still get a stick though.
Overall, I know my money is better spent somewhere else, but why should I stop at 2 money pits when I can have 3?
Edit: Moneypitz.
Make them an offer that you can not refuse.
They look great and that’s pretty much it. Unfortunately it’s just a reskin of a platform that’s been around for over 20 years at this point. The pricing is also hilariously optimistic. The Z is objectively worse than its competition in most categories and yet they somehow priced as if it’s as good or better.
You can get a barebones Mustang GT for about the same price as a base Z and it’s more powerful, naturally aspirated, has a standard LSD, makes V8 noises, and is somewhat usable. A Supra will destroy a Z on the track. The higher trims/Nismo put you firmly in C8 territory…and you can get into nice certified 718s for around that price too. There’s also the M2.
These just cost $10,000 too much for what they deliver across the board. If it was a decade ago the current Z would be very enticing and pricing them with their competitors would make sense…but that ship has sailed. This car/platform haven’t taken a step forward since the 370 Z and you can get into one of those for half the price.
Nissan is cooked, but we’ve known that for a while.
0% for 72 months on $60,000 amounts to another 5 figures of discounting on that Nismo vs even prime rates.
Valid point.
I feel like this horse has been beaten to death several times over, but from a Z33 owner and general Nissan enthusiast…
1) The fact that they iterated a third time instead of going new made this thing DOA. Even Z guys knew the Z34 was a dinosaur. The 33/34 had been modified to death for years and we all knew the limitations of the platform and how far you could take it. For all intents and purposes, this is just a factory-modified Z34. Which means…
2) Performance didn’t live up to expectations. On paper it looks fantastic. But 4.5 seconds to 60? My nearly 20 year old N/A Z33 with bolt-ons and a tune does 60 in about 5 seconds. Yeah, the Z35 will spank it in the quarter, but these cars are NOT for the drag strip. Never have been. From reviews, it also handles better than the Z35 with aftermarket suspension, probably partially due to it weighing 200lbs less. Why would I, their ideal target customer, pay that much for another slight upgrade on what I already have? I’d be better off using a quarter of that money and doing a proper turbo build, and end up with a better car and money in the bank.
3) Price point was wrong. Many Z guys I knew were really looking forward to this going back to the original Z-car’s roots – affordable performance. This should have been the IDx with a Z body. A fixed-roof Miata. A Toyobaru with a factory turbo. Give us 300 hp, 3k curb weight, and keep it around 35k.
Nissan just did what it has been doing for years now – completely misread the room. These will probably be great cars in 10 years when the normal person can pick them up with 50k miles and pay in cash. But there’s no way I’d buy new, much less take out a loan for one.
Considering the sheer amount of reuse from the 350/370, it’s maddening the price didn’t reflect it.
The price starts too high and goes up too fast. I’m in the market for a car, and I like these, but I’d barley be interested in a well equipped manual car for $40k and a good interest rate.
Still seems like a bit much for these and also I do not think I have even seen one of these in person on the road yet I have seen cybertrucks and hummer evs yet not one of these and I live in NWI (north west Indiana) so not like I live around super wealthy or rich people.