Nissan has announced the 2024 Nissan Z Heritage Edition which “celebrates a legacy of sports car excitement.”
Likely aware that true sports cars are becoming tragically rare and sentimentality sells, Nissan has launched a few special edition models recently. The GT-R is getting a couple of limited variants designed to play heavily into its heritage as a tuner car and the Frontier is being issued a “Hardbody” appearance package designed to create a sense of nostalgia for the original pickup.
Since it’s literally being called the 2024 Nissan Z Heritage Edition, the Fairlady will be given a similar throwback treatment. Vehicles start out as Performance trimmed models.
That means a twin-turbo 3.0-liter V6 cranking out 400 horsepower mated to either a six-speed manual or nine-speed automatic transmission. The car also comes with a mechanical, limited-slip differential and some upgraded brakes. But these are all things you can get without buying into the Heritage Edition.
What you’re really purchasing is another appearance package, albeit one that very clearly tries to emulate aspects of the original Z car. The S30 version of the Z was commonly featured in orange for marketing purposes and many fans associate the orange and black paint scheme with sporting offerings from Nissan. While the color of the 2024 Nissan Z Heritage Edition doesn’t appear to be an exact match to the original paint, it’s pretty close.
It’s the same thing with the 19-inch wheels. They’re not Watanabes. But they’re very obviously designed to resemble them and hearken back to an era where that was THE wheel to put on your Japanese sports car.
The front grille has been reshaped to emulate the 240Z. But they had true bumpers and round headlamps. The squared and split grille does give the model a unique look from the standard car, but perhaps not the appearance of the older models without more being done. Even though the car’s silhouette most closely resembles the S30, the car is kind of a hodgepodge of multiple Z-car eras and that might have hurt Nissan here.
Additional touches come by way of a black decals, fender extensions, and swapping in the original Z emblem wherever possible. While not exclusive to the Heritage Edition, the fender flares do a lot of the heavy lifting here. The decals are also hard to miss and do a lot to separate the car from other Z models.
Nissan threw out an MSRP of $59,135 (before destination) for the Z Heritage Edition, which seems pretty steep for an appearance package. The Performance starts about $6,000 cheaper and one could spend that money on all kinds of aftermarket goodies, including those from the Nissan-owned Nismo.
[Images: Nissan]
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