More than outright speed, this machine is best enjoyed powering into corners. That’s because Nissan engineers have achieved a fine balance, its weight bias is 53:47 front/rear. How they have managed it is quite brilliant. It’s not exactly a front-engined car, as the V6 is placed behind the front axle, closer to the driver – it’s actually ‘front mid-engined’! The benefit is that while the designer could give the front-end a narrow, wind-cheating snout, the engineers could make it well-balanced. Well, all this I found out later, but when I was driving the car, I really felt one with it. Suddenly, all the familiar roundabouts in Mumbai and the right- and left-handers were now opportunities for pushing the car and for enjoying the sensation of being pushed out of them. Every successive corner was meant for bettering the previous one. Seriously, this is the one single reason to buy a sports coupe over the humdrum sedans and hatchbacks I normally get to drive.
Soon, I found myself driving right through Mumbai’s morning rush hour traffic. Vehicles were filling up the roads and whatever remaining space there was between them was occupied by commuters streaming out of railway stations. That basically ended my short honeymoon with the 350Z. It was turning more heads now, but in the stop-go conditions, it remained calm. The V6 wasn’t begging for more revs to keep up with the so-called flow of traffic. At that moment, if not for the sporty steering wheel and harsh suspension settings, I could be in any other low-slung sedan – it was that well-behaved.
Then I realised that I couldn’t find any fault with this car. Was it perfect? Frankly, yes. The 350Z is perhaps the best sports coupe you can get in the world for the price it’s asking. It’s got all the right elements in it and looks fairly expensive too. It’s as if Nissan has finally made up for all the boring cars they put together in the pre-Renault days with this really well-crafted, superbly engineered, brilliant looking, fantastic-to-drive automobile. The Z legend lives on.
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