The genius of the 400Z's design

Illustration for article titled The genius of the 400Zs design
Photo: not me

Since everyone’s posting their opinion of the 400Z...

First off, I like the design. It’s very clean and elegant without being bland. It’s one of the best-looking modern sports car designs I’ve seen in a while. The only problem is that the grille is too tall. Having just a giant black rectangle there looks out of place. Even on the original, it wasn’t that tall proportionally, and most of the road cars had a bumper to break it up so it looked nice and slim. The new grille’s shape is fine, it just needs to either be shorter or have something to divide the top from the bottom.

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But the real clever part of the design of this car, I think, is that having a very clean design like this makes it an excellent blank canvas for mods, body kits, and whatnot. I’m sure there will be plenty of aftermarket companies offering dozens of options for changing the look of your 400Z’s nose. Nissan’s made an excellent tuner car here.