New Vehicle Launch

The 370Z Roadster was designed from the blank sheet stage as both coupe and Roadster. Why is this important? The car's chassis and body was designed to not only look good in either hardtop or soft-top guise, but also cope with the loss of rigidity of an open roof. The 370Z Roadster needs only minor additional structural strengthening in the windscreen, sills and rear torsion wall (between seats and boot). A small weight gain of only about 60kg over the coupe, including weight of roof mechanisms, shows the body rigidity of both cars. The proper engineering manifested on rough potholed roads, with no vibration and none of that dreaded scuttle shake, without a compromise in dynamic behaviour. The soft-top folds down quickly and neatly under a small hard cover, speedster style. The roof can also be operated via the button on the door handle. "It offers the same dramatic performance, road holding and rear-wheel drive handling as the highly acclaimed 370Z coupe, but with the added bonus of fresh air fun" the media release puts it beautifully.

Like the 370Z coupe, the Roadster is powered by the latest version of Nissan's multi award-winning 3.7-litre V6 engine, developing 245kW and 363Nm. The engine is certainly brisk, but can be quite raucous, making relatively more noise than speed. It certainly sounds sports-car husky V6, but seems strained at times. Performance of the Roadster Z is close to that of the coupe (see spec table above for Roadster figures). It's also available with both transmissions: a 7-speed paddle-shift automatic or the 6-speed manual with SynchroRev Control, as the only manual transmission in the world with automatic downshift rev-matching for perfect gear changes.

Every 370Z Roadster is comprehensively equipped as standard with Bi-xenon lights, fixed roll-over hoops, plus 6 airbags not usually found in open cars, yet Nissan's clever solution is to pack curtain airbags into the doors. Safe is also pretty and comfy: it wears sporty 19-inch alloy wheels inside front tyres of 245/40 R19 and rear fat 275/35 R19s, plus an engine stop/start button, intelligent key (keyless access), electrically adjustable leather seats with grippy suede-like inserts, Bluetooth connectivity, and phone/audio/cruise controls mounted on the steering wheel. The 370Z coupe and Roadster range will now also offer an optional multi-media entertainment touch-screen and navigation system. Pricing for 370Z Roadsters are R543 000 in manual, or R561 000 in automatic, so at just R30k more than the coupe, this is a Roadster bargain.

The Nissan 370Z Roadster in the accompanying pictures is in a colour named Black Rose - very alluring and sensual... which also describes the car perfectly.