We love the new Nissan Z, don’t we, folks? It’s the beautiful go-fast Z sports car of our dreams, packed with Millennial-baiting Z32 nostalgic style and the twin-turbo V6 engine it probably should’ve gotten five or six years ago. It is a dynamic coupe packed with driving enjoyment and the good noises. So why did a bunch of Japanese students turn the gorgeous Z into a crossover?
Chaos. Pure chaos. That is all I can assume here. And while I appreciate their industrious effort, I fear greatly that this design will give Nissan some ideas that we aren’t prepared to deal with.
Meet the Nissan Fairlady X. Don’t freak out, it’s not a production car—yet. As spotted by CarScoops, it’s a one-off development from the students at Nissan Automobile Technical College (aka Nissan Gakuen) that will be shown at next month’s 2023 Tokyo Auto Salon. That’s a kind of Japanese SEMA, complete with the manufacturer and tuner shop participation, and it’s not uncommon to see some wild builds there.
But I don’t know how people will react to turning the lovely new Z into a crossover. And there’s even more potentially upsetting news: the body’s based on a Murano, not a Z. Sorry to be the one to break this to you. I’ll be here if you need to take a moment to gather yourself.
“Based on Nissan Murano! Fairlady X, the SUV version of the new Fairlady Z (RZ34), will be exhibited at Tokyo Auto Salon 2023! The body color is Z432R style extreme orange x black 2 tone,” the tweet below reads, according to a quick Google Chrome translation.
何とベースは日産ムラーノ！新型フェアレディZ(RZ34)のSUV版となるフェアレディXが東京オートサロン2023に出展へ！ボディカラーはZ432R風の過激なオレンジ×ブラック2トーン https://t.co/hCOcYxeM10
— 車の最新情報まとめ@新型 納車 納期 受注 リコール レクサス ハリアー ヤリス RX CX60 (@___lexus) December 20, 2022
CarScoops says the Fairlady X boasts the front end, rear taillights and some interior parts from a standard Z, including the steering wheel. But it’s unclear if the Z’s delightful new 400 horsepower, 3.0-liter, twin-turbo V6 made the transition or not. We do know it has an automatic transmission, not the six-speed manual in the new Z.
Also, I can’t say anything negative here about the work these students did—that would feel like punching down, and the craftsmanship here is clearly impressive. They did one hell of a job tearing it down, too, which you can see in this video below.
But saying “Dear God, please don’t make the Z into a crossover” is a perfectly natural reaction to have here. I hope these kids, talented as they are, don’t give Nissan ideas. The Ford Mustang Mach-E was enough of a shock to our collective systems (and even that took a while to really prove itself.) We don’t need this thing, too. There’s just too much going on right now! It’s a lot to deal with.
Granted, Nissan’s kind of flirted with the idea of a Z crossover before. Remember the Gripz concept from a few years ago? At the time, a lot of folks thought that could turn into the next Z, or something like it; then as now, the pure sports car market hit the skids pretty hard, so many industry-watchers felt it was plausible for the Z to become a volume-selling people-mover in order to survive at all. Thankfully, that never happened. (I should also bring up the Infiniti FX crossover, which had the same platform and VQ V6 engine as the last Z, so it was awfully similar; but that was more like a Z crossover in a business suit, and it was actually a pretty decent performer.)
So good on these Nissan students and their very cool build! I just need it to stay in the ideas phase, please. If not, at least make it rear-wheel-drive. Can you at least do that for us, Nissan?
Also, it looks like the kids might be up to something else, too. Maybe something involving an old Fairlady Roadster, and a March? Unclear, but we should find out soon. I hope you kids know what you’re doing!
カスタマイズ科NEWS！ダットサンフェアレディがだんだんと仕上がってきてます。ベースとなるカラーの上にクリア塗装（艶出し効果や塗装保護効果があるもの）を施します。ターコイズブルーのような綺麗な色をしています。また、ターコイズブルーの和名は新橋色または金春色（こんぱるいろ）と呼びます。 pic.twitter.com/UokJNfqB0Z
— 日産京都自動車大学校【学生広報部】 (@23kyoto_info) December 14, 2022
Images: Nissan Gakuen
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I am starting to see more and more vape boys driving around in clapped out crossovers with fart cans and blue headlights. I guess this would be meant for them if they ever grew up.
The end of time are truly upon us.
I hope this doesn’t give Nissan ideas, I mean this is the same company that gave us the Murano CrossCabriolet and Skyline Crossover…
It looks a lot like the Lamborghini Urus, Ferrari Purosangue and the new Z combined. I like it. When I first saw the new Z, I thought something just like this was probably already in the long term plan. The A pillars could use some improvement, though.
I won’t complain at all if it’s made. If everything’s going SUV, I’d be happy to see one with the performance and personality that comes with the Z’s twin turbo V6 and 6 speed manual or 9 speed automatic transmission options.
I’ll take mine with the manual in Ikazuchi Yellow or Seiran Blue, whichever ships first.
Looks a helluva lot better than what Ford did with that Mustang Ute thing…..
Thanks, I hate it.
Flunk that whole class.
Yeah i am guessing you should not be writing car columns. You dont know what you are talking about
I will definitely take the career advice under advisement, Dave.
Have you perhaps considered { LOUD FART NOISES }?
So essentially what Ford did to the Mustang….
This is poetic, in a way, as the 350Z shared the FM platform with the Infiniti FX, a crossover of the same size as the Murano. Of course, the FX drove much better than any FWD-based crossover…
They really should have turned it into a ute/pickup instead.
Japanese tech colleges always bring the weirdest stuff to Tokyo Auto Salon. You should look up NATS, they have a like 25 year history of bringing multiple wild cars to Auto Salon. Last year they brought a stretch limo, lowrider Toyota Century that is legitimately extremely cool.
Since its based on a Murano, it shouldn’t be too hard to make it into a convertible. Mmmmmm-Tasty!
I think a good palate cleanser after this would be an entire article of Daydreaming Designer turning crossovers into sporty cars. Pilot into a Prelude, CX-9 into an RX-7, that kind of thing. If we’re going to make these abominations we should at least go the right direction.
one word… FUGLY
It’s basically a Mitsuoka. Kind of reminds me of the factory-built Toyota RAV4 limo: https://www.thedrive.com/news/35097/toyota-made-this-wonky-rav4-limo-as-a-team-building-exercise
Are they using expanding foam and then covering it with fiberglass? That’s pretty nifty!
Fibreglass encased foam can be surprisingly strong. I had a friend back in school that built an incredible lightweight mobile bridge for an engineering assignment. If I recall it could span a 8-10 ft ditch. He tried to prove you could walk across it. Turned out you could drive a pretty big heavy seventies motorcycle across it. It was easily carried by one person.
For a second there, I thought it was April 1. Now I’m just sad.
I guess they thought it would be a good application for a bigger domo-mouth grille 😛
CroZZover?
370ZX?
I hope at least it comes in cool colors. That will be a redeeming feature
Domo kun was the first thing I thought when I saw it.
“So good on these Nissan students and their very cool build!”
Hear, hear! Agreed, the craftsmanship appears to be excellent.
Nice to see you here, PG. 🙂
That lady is anything but fair.
“Don’t freak out, it’s not a production car—yet.”
We both know it’s coming. There’s a dearth of sports cars converted into crossovers in the market.
Don’t think about it! DON’T EVEN LOOK AT IT
So what would Adrian come up with?
Got to hand it to the students though.
Well I’ll you what he wouldn’t come up with, and that’s this.
Please design a Datsun inspired crossover. Cmon. You know it sounds cool. Lots of fun designs to pull things from. C10 chassis, so hot right now. Especially w the facelift.
I mean literally every high end exotic has one now. I might be more swayed to look at a rogue with a Z face and clamshell doors if it get 400hp and a real auto trans, better yet throw in a manual with a crawler gear and give the thing Manual locking AWD diffs and a proper locking transfer case. it could be a poor mans track hawk in a sort of Urus body I suppose.
Should be a convertible for the complete the full Nissan circle jerk
CrossCabriolet is love. CrossCabriolet is life.
But Carlos has left the house.
Ugh.
Just…
ugh.
Those kids have long glorious futures as corporate yes-men, if nothing else.