It’s the battle we’ve all been waiting for. Japanese video series Best Motoring recently got its hands on a brand-spanking-new Z34 Nissan 370Z and lined it up against its main rival the Porsche Cayman S, the similarly-powered BMW 135i, a Honda S2000 and - just for giggles - a Porsche 911 Carrera.
It’s a proper performance test too, and it takes place on Japan’s revered Tsukuba circuit. Being a short and tight track the focus is on handling rather than outright power, but it’s clear that the 370Z has more than enough oomph to hang with the Germans.
We won’t spoil the video’s ending - hit the jump to see it for yourselves - but we will say that the result may surprise a few of you. Check it out.
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Wow! I’m starting to like the 370z more and more its good to see Nissan giving to the Germans. I reckon if they started on the grid side by side the Cayman would have a tough time keeping up!
Only thing I don’t like is the auto rev match. It just shows people are getting more and more lazy.
Although I was quite surprised how much understeer the 135 had..look liked at turn 1 it really had a hard time hitting the apex!
By having a look at the Time Attack results you can see just how good the Z34 is. Although coming second in the race to the Cayman, the Z34 managed to beat the Caymen’s time attack time by more than one and a half seconds.
Mighty impress result there.
Well the 370Zee certainly looks the goods! And I have to say that it looks better in video/flesh than in pics.
I’d also forgotten about the S2000…apart from the 370Z, that’s the *only* other Japanese sports car in production today (apart from the Lexus SC430 which hardly counts..).
The 370z is really growing on me and looks great in white.
I’ve heard from all reports that i looks much better in the flesh than in photo’s and the video does shed some much needed light on it’s performance vs. the competition.
I am mightily impressed at Nissan’s line up, as far as Japanese marque’s go there’s not much in the way of exciting metal to go out and buy, with the 370’s performance being assured it shows it can meet expectations and give more expensive cars a good run for their overpriced money.
Looking at the laptimes alone if you’re not into the dramatics of the race itself, the race times and the time attack times are quite impressive vs. the competition also.
I wonder if there will be more power on tap in later revisions of the 370z as there was in the 350z (i.e. power went from 206kw to 230kw along with some suspension tweaks).
This itself is exciting with smaller laptimes to follow making the 370z a firm Porsche Boxster/Cayman alternative and in the real world a Carerra one too.
I had really fallen for the 370 about a month ago, now I MUST own one!
There is no way you can compare the caymans to the nissan. The guy in the cayman was the poorer of the drivers giggling like a girl. Drive a caymans and then the nissan and you will see why a mid engined car with the engine screaming behind your ear is so much better. You buy a nissan if you cant afford the caymans. The cayman is so much sexier on the road…..
Bill, I have actually seen the new 370Z on the road in a colour called Titanium and let me tell you there is very little difference in the sex appeal stakes between that and a Cayman S!. Actually I’d argue that from the rear the Cayman is beaten in this area by the Z which looks so aggressive. There is no doubt about the rear mid engine layout, but from all the videos of seen the Z sounds absolutely spine tingling (a quantam leap over the slightly gruff sounding 350Z). Still you can’t ignore the price, a Cayman S PDK is $160K PLUS options, that’s more than a GT-R! and way more than double the similalrly engineered 370Z. At that price range I would go a GT-R..my secondd choice would be a late model 911 which is utterly beautiful.
I love these “staged” races. The auto press has always done head-to-head races to emphasize a certain car versus insurmountable odds. Inevitably, the highlighted car ‘magically’ wins, or at least gets second. Anyone who has raced, or for that matter taken a decent driving course, could see that the Nissan was being driven very smartly while everyone else was all over the place. I’ve never seen Porsches driven with so much steering wheel movement or the lines that the BMW was taking! What was that about? The 370 is a good gar, there’s no doubt, but this so called test was ridiculous on so many levels (and NO, I don’t own or want to own any of these cars).
I agree with Shamus, some of those racing lines were a joke. Where’s Top Gears’ “The Stig” when you need him? He would have rung out these cars within an inch of their life, and THEN we could have compared some real lap times.
“You buy a nissan if you cant afford the caymans”
incorrect. you buy a cayman if you cant afford a 911. You buy a nissan if you want to go fast and dont have investment banker mates to impress.
Only retards pull out statements like that - either you drive a porsche (and are therefore a tosser who likes to write “if you cant afford my car”) or you dont own a porsche ( talking out your a*s).