Not currently in the market for one, but trying to understand the appeal of these, as well as what to look for should I succomb to wanting one. To me they are sort of like the girl you find yourself falling for even when you don't want to. In other words, I have not been a fan, but am finding them oddly appealing.
Ask me again after the Atlanta Match Tour next week.
Long story short: Non-Brembo versions are woefully underbraked. Good double A-Arm chassis. Lousy stock viscous LSD. Stout (but not terribly sexy) VQ engine. Interior is a throwback to 1990s Japanese cars in all the right and wrong ways. Can fit monster wheels and tires. Not much goes really wrong with them.
Verdict: So far I really dig ours. We did a Carfax and it turns out it had a ROUGH life (five known accidents). But it goes down the road pretty well with a minimum of rattles or shakes, despite its less-than-stellar history. Fun track or AutoX car with a brake upgrade.
I had one, a non-brembo car at that. I would avoid small brake cars. Later they ditched brembos and went with some internal brand brakes that are also not bad.
The early car was fast for 2003 but today would feel underpowered. Especially if you drove the 300ZXtt before it. The later car's engine is more fun with better top end and IIRC rev about 1000rpm more. You can bring the earlier car up to that level with bolt ons and a tune +cam and you need a aftermarket plenum of some kind, I did that and it remedied my problem I had with the engine. The brakes tho were bad. Avoid base braked cars. Some people claim even the Brembos and upgraded brakes even on the 370z are underpowered. I don't feel that way but some do.
It's a fun car. If you want a better handling car that is similar to it check out a RX8. If you want a non-rotary more nimble car that is just as fast check out the S2000. If you hate rotaries and roadsters the 350Z is a good choice.
He is right you can fit monster tiers like what you could fit on a Corvette. There are a lot of turbo and supercharged 350Zs and that is a huge benefit of the chassis. It's a good car if you want a project like that. I had 265 in front and 285 or 295 in back. Could of fit even more in the back but 265 in front was max with fender roll.
I think an S2K would be a better overall car, however being in Ohio having the hard top would be a nice eyar round feature.
For the Money, it seems like there are better choices...I will keep looking.
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