Nissan’s legendary Z just keeps getting better. Introduced as a 2023 model year car in mid-2022, the new Z has been around for about 30 months, and for 2024 there is a new track-ready trim. Car Talk has had a chance to spend a total of three weeks with the Z, including time with the new top-trim 2024 Z NISMO.

The Nissan Z is a great sports car that nudges up against the right side of the spectrum of sports cars offered today in terms of performance. There are not as many sports cars being made today as in the past, and Nissan has opted to make the Z very high in performance. There is certainly nothing wrong with that, but it is not a tossable runabout like the Miata, Subaru BRZ or Toyota GR86. Rather, the Z is built to compete with higher-performance cars like Toyota’s Supra, BMW’s Z4, Porsche’s Cayman, and arguably even the Chevrolet Corvette. The Z combines muscle car power along with the handling and braking of a classic sports car. Thirty years ago, we might have called the Z a supercar.

What the Z isn’t is a touring car. It’s not really built for on-road comfort but is more serious than a touring car. The Z NISMO trim, introduced this year, is a straight-up racecar, complete with racing tires.

The Toyota Supra has a lot in common with the Z. Both offer six-cylinder turbocharged engines, with the Supra also being available as a four-cylinder base option. Both are two-seaters and are true rear-wheel drive cars. The Z offers a manual shifter and has an engine we found punchier. The last time we checked, Toyota only offered a manual with the four-cylinder Supra. These are both great sports cars. Brand loyalty and looks will help shoppers choose between the two.

We have not tested the new BMW Z4, Porsche Cayman, or Chevrolet Corvette, so we will leave the driving impressions for others to describe. What each of these competitors brings to the table is a bit more upscale interiors for sure. Our top-trim Z had two hard plastic blanks right where the driver’s right hand falls. Every vehicle in this discussion has more capability than can ever be exploited on public roads. The Corvette and BMW Z4 offer convertible options, and the Cayman’s twin, the Boxster is also a drop-top. Open roofs have a lot of appeal for a sports car driver not planning to go racing.

The Nissan Z has three trims and a very wide price span. The base Z is called the Sport. It has the six-cylinder turbocharged engine and can come standard with a manual transmission, or you can opt to get the optional automatic. The Sport starts at about $44K. That is a crazy deal. The Performance adds bigger wheels and some interior niceties. It has a price of $54K. Either can have the automatic transmission for another $2K. The Z NISMO is built for racing and has a lot of stuff great for the track but not much use on public roads. The one we tested was priced at $68,680.

The new Z NISMO is the pinnacle of the Z family for 2024. The Z NISMO has an additional 20 horsepower compared to Sport and Performance, so its total is now a whopping 420 hp. It also only comes with an automatic transmission, complete with paddle shifters and manual mode. If you are a sports car fan planning to buzz around your local back country roads, you likely want a manual shifter. However, if you want to shave a few seconds off of a lap time, the Z NISMO’s rapid-shifting automatic makes sense. The Z NISMO gets bigger brakes with racing compound pads and gummy Dunlop racing tires. These are only safe down to about 40F, so if you plan some fall driving or want to drive the Z NISMO around in winter for some weird reason, plan on buying a second set of tires. The last touches on the Z NISMO are suspension tweaks, a special “G Nose” with a front aero splitter, and some cosmetic touches.

Driving the Z may surprise some folks who have been away from sports cars for a while. Back in the heyday of Japanese sports cars, you could jump in a Mitsubishi Starion, Toyota Supra, or Nissan Z, and they all felt similar. You could easily drive these lightweight cars to their limits and maybe even induce a little oversteer on a lonely country road’s curve. The cars were fun and ideally suited to “spirited” driving on public roads.

The current generation Z is a departure from that type of car. This is a car with immense power and limits to its capabilities no driver can fully exploit on public roads. Acceleration is dramatic. If you rev this car and drop the clutch, you had better have a quarter mile in front of you to run. The Z is a rocket. And the horsepower is only part of the equation. The engine builds crazy low-end torque. The Z NISMO has 384 lb-ft of torque, and all of it is available at just 2,000 RPMs. Remember, this is a two-wheel drive car. More power and torque would not be useful in any meaningful way. You would not be able to put it down without spinning the tires.

It’s been about four years since we last tracked a Z, but the car has always been a hoot on a racetrack. We remember the Z having that perfect balance between a car any enthusiast can jump in and enjoy and a car that an experienced racetrack driver could spend years mastering.

One of our favorite parts of the Z is its rev-matching manual transmission. If your heel-toe skills are a little rusty and you don’t want to melt your synchros, the rev-match system will perfectly match revs as you downshift into a corner. If you think that a system like that is the worst possible thing you have ever heard of, good news. It has an off button right on the shifter mount. Nissan built the Z to make a wide range of enthusiasts happy.

We had a week to drive the Z NISMO on public roads, and we did some touring around in the car. Our media group has a fleet manager who knows cars like Forest knows ping pong, and we were warned not to use Sport+ mode unless we wanted to go to jail or the hospital. The Z NISMO is a race car. Its capabilities go way beyond sporty Sunday cruising.

Well, the Z NISMO has a fixed roof. That’s a safety plus by comparison to its peers with cloth drop tops. Also, the Z NISMO’s seats are ready for a five-point racing harness. The safety of a car like this is not measured the same way one judges a minivan. IIHS and NHTSA have not rated the Z for safety. We can say this about the Z: When we tested it on a high-speed road course, the limits were easy to find. A driver who has a bit of track experience can slide the Z sideways and catch it. The limits of its adherence are predictable. In addition to making the car more fun, predictable limits help keep the shiny side up. Z cars are also easy to steer using the throttle (on a track).

Nissan scores quite well on the J.D. Power Durability Study, earning a spot in the top quarter of brands. The Nissan brand is very close to Toyota and beats the pants off Porsche and BMW. The Z has also earned the “recommended” stamp from Consumer Reports. Being a low-volume car can be a negative for quality, but we bet Nissan’s manufacturing team spends a lot of time making sure every Z that ships is near perfect.

If we could offer any advice to our readers about the Z, it would be to pick the right trim for your planned use. Are you going to buy a trailer and go racing? If so, the Z NISMO makes good sense. If not, you should buy a Sport for racing. If you are planning to use your Z mainly for public road grand touring, the stick-shift-equipped Performance or Sport are both good choices.

One fun option offered by Nissan is a dual-camera drive recorder. It’s just $360. The cameras point forward to capture what is in front of the vehicle and also to the inside to catch what happens in the cabin. Handy for fun days on the road or track and also helpful for security. The $644 rear spoiler is a no-brainer for this car. If you are buying a Z NISMO, the Two-tone Passion Red TriCoat / Super Black paint combo shown in our images adds $1,695, and we would not buy the car without it.

Nissan offers the industry standard warranty. Many brands offer a longer warranty, but none of the Z’s competitors are made by those brands.

• Basic: 3 years / 36k miles
• Powertrain: 5 years / 60k miles
• If buying used look at our best extended warranties

The current generation Z is only about 30 months old. Finding a used 2023 Z may be possible, but it is unlikely. We would not hesitate to recommend a 2023 Certified Pre-Owned Z if one existed. The prior generation Z was a great car in its own right and a viable choice in the used market. The Z was also available as a convertible (Roadster), and that Z would be a great grand touring car.

Editor's note and disclaimer: Car Talk is supported by our fans, readers and listeners. When you click on some of the links on our website, we may receive referral compensation. However, you should know that the recommendations we make are based on our independent editorial review and analyses.