When I was 14, I followed in my older brother's Z footsteps when my dad bought me an '80 280ZX complete with massive whale tail and turbine rims... but I don't really consider that Z my first car because I never drove it. My older brother blew the engine street racing it and we ended up giving the car to a friend. He felt bad about it and ended up buying me a '77 280Z before I was 16. That car was sweet-it had a new factory engine installed from Nissan, and I spent all my spare time outside of high school suping it up, inside and out. At 16, to me, that car felt super fast and sounded tough with its Monza exhaust and headers-I could never take my eyes off of it, and it instilled in me a passion for the Z that has never left. I have a lot of good and crazy memories with that car and I ended up passing it down to my younger brother when I went to CCS. I've had about 10 Z cars since, half of them being parts cars.
Were any of them tuned?
Most of the cars I drove were slightly modified-they all had rims, and were slammed with an exhaust. For a car to look right, it has to have slightly bigger wheels, lowered, and it has to sound tough with a full exhaust system. I used to have a '71 240Z that was a former race car with full roll cage that we made street legal. I bought that car with my student loan money with no engine or interior. I was only back home for two and a half weeks, but my dad and brother helped me put it back together so quick I ended up having a week to drive it!
Were any of them tuned to make mad hp?
My cars looked good and were quick enough for the street, but I was always too broke to throw big amounts of money into them.
The plight of all tuners... what other modified cars have you owned?
I appreciate all cars and have owned a few different brands. Going to school in Detroit, Datsuns were slim pickings, especially when you're a starving student. I had a '90 Prelude, '93 NX2000, '96 Miata and a '91 MR2. I really liked the "Mister 2" but it was slow-even with suspension mods and rims I thought it handled like crap compared to the Zs I've had.
Prepare for some very angry Toyota hate mail. [laughs] Going back to the 370Z, were you given carte blanche on the design or were there any guidelines?
Nissan's criteria was to make a super evolution of the 350Z. The Z33 is an amazing design and a sales success, so Nissan didn't want to walk completely away from it. The concept for the 370Z was an "Erotic Mechanism"-something sexy, while highlighting technical and mechanical details.
Sounds kinky. How much of the design was based on the 350Z?
When I started to sketch, instead of trying to redraw the 350Z, I tried to put on paper the hottest Z that I could come up with. The package has improved dimensions, but aren't dramatically different from the Z33, so naturally, the 370Z has similar proportions. The changes however, are much more apparent when the two cars are side by side. The 370Z is shorter, wider and lower than the 350Z-all the things a designer would want. I applaud the engineers and planners at Nissan for making that happen. The 350 is beautiful, but a little friendly looking to me, especially in the front. I wanted to turn up the anger a few levels and inject the car with some steroids. The 370 is more dynamic and emotional with a bigger chest, flexed muscles and a more aggressive stance that is undeniably FR.
As for package-wheel base, track, height, etc.-are those parameters handed down prior to the design phase?
When we start sketching, we are given a package that the engineers are still working out so we work with proportions that are close. But it's a moving target throughout the design process. There are negotiations between design and engineering to come up with something that is functional while still looking good.