We’ve Waited Over 10 Years: Now We Get A Warmed Over 2022 Nissan Proto Z?
We’ve seen the fanboy renderings. We’ve absorbed the official Nissan sneak peeks for the new 2022 400Z. Today it was revealed in an official Nissan extravaganza online. Meh. We’ve looked at the current 370Z, and what debuted today with the Proto Z looks like it shares too much to call the new 400Z new. It is refreshed or restyled, but it sure isn’t new. It is a rehash of the last 11 years. Now Nissan gives us a warmed-over 370Z for 2022 when we really wanted an all-new Z.
We expected far more than Nissan 2022 Proto Z revealed today
Disappointed is being kind. We expected far more than what Nissan revealed today. Nissan’s situation is that they need to get the most for the least. That’s because their war chest is pretty much depleted. So it needs to be creative and crafty to appear as though it is cranking out new products. The car revealed tonight is just warmed-over current stuff.
Not to say that the reveal presented something that will tank. It is just that our expectation was much more than what we saw in the Proto Z. We’re not engineers, but what was shown looks like a re-bodied 370Z. That means the inner structure is identical to the current 11-year-old, tired, 370Z. The roofline looks identical. It is a very identifiable roof profile so we can’t imagine Nissan got this as super-close as what it is showing here. And that means everything is based on components developed in the mid-2000s.
What we saw tonight we expected Nissan would reveal in 2016
Are we being harsh in our assessment of what was shown tonight? Maybe. But there are some exciting new cars coming from South Korea, Japan, and Europe. Have you looked at the current Camry? Previously a milquetoast sedan, it is aggressive-looking with all of the advantages of being a Toyota. That is not what Nissan’s 400Z looks like it is conveying.
Could Nissan have stretched out more in its Proto Z design? Absofugatuvely. Instead, we get this. It takes on styling cues from the first 204Z which came out in 1970. We hope that Nissan sees the negative response to its new-car ruse and decides to market something worthy of the reputation that the 240Z represents.
