'80S CALLING!

PERFORMANCE COLLIDES WITH NOSTALGIA AS THE NEW Z FACES THE GR SUPRA

- JONNY LIEBERMAN

T he '80s are back, baby! Kate Bush is still running up a hill, people are unironically wearing Oakley sunglasses, Hyundai unveiled a concept car that looks just like the DeLorean Group B race car that never was, and Top Gun: Maverick was the summer's runaway box office hit. Our collective unconscious lust for all things retro now extends into Motor Trend's pages as we pit a 2023 Nissan Z against a 2022 Toyota GR Supra, two Japanese sports cars that have roamed our nation's streets for decades.

Intriguingly, Toyota does not build the Supra; BMW, its partner in the project, does. The new Supra is in fact the hardtop version of the quite pleasant BMW Z4. So aside from body panels, there isn't much Toyota about the car save for tuning.

As for the new Z-Nissan dropped the numeric part of the car's name-it is an amalgamation of Nissan and Infiniti parts.

The FM chassis, for example, dates to 2002. The big questions: Is the Z just a nostalgia play, tugging at the heartstrings and fattening wallets of Generations X and Y? Or is there something more there? Is it as good as the Supra? First thought: Both cars could look better. The 2014 Toyota FT-1 concept, which previewed the eventual production Supra's design, was a stunner, but it had to shrink around the reality of the Z4's hardpoints. The resulting car is proportionally off. That's a fancy way of saying the Supra looks stumpy.

The Nissan's looks, meanwhile, might make you scratch your head. The front end is an obvious homage to the original 240Z from 1970, but the rear is lifted from the R32, which made its debut for the 1990 model year. Perhaps it mostly works if you've never spent time study in either of those old Z's, but it's all a bit