If Fast and the Furious met FIA regulations
In case you thought the rivalry between the Supra and the forthcoming new Nissan Z wasn’t intense enough, Nissan’s NISMO backrooms decided to put all their chips on the table in order to go head-to-head, or in this case bumper to bumper with the Supra FIA’s GT4 class. While this isn’t the Z NISMO we all hoped for or got riled up about, it does leave us with a lot of answers, and some questions about what Nissan has in store.
As aforementioned, the Nissan Z GT4 will race in the FIA GT4 class, a category that more similarly represents a car’s roadgoing counterpart rather than the off-the-wall bonkers GT3 class. The guinea pigs deep in the NISMO department- which stands for Nissan Motorsport, tuned the stock Z engine, added some safety features like a roll cage and fire extinguisher and tacked on a wing that you could eat dinner off of and sent this thing on its way.
The GT4 racecar has a front splitter and front canards which we think will be a nicely welcomed addition to the actual road-going NISMO version. While we wouldn’t expect the dinner table rear wing to make the cut, we could see most of the aero and appearance package to make their way to the production model. The upgraded engine could also see time underneath the bonnet of the mass-produced vehicle.
What we found interesting was the nixing of the dual-exhaust and the switch to a single exhaust setup to the left bank. While we don’t think this will be included on the NISMO model, it sure is peculiar to see Nissan has done what some Z owners will and already do for a better sounding and higher performance setup.
Nissan will fully reveal the GT4 and all its glorious numbers at SEMA in Las Vegas this November. We’ll see how the GT4 will compare to the NISMO in terms of performance and numbers.
