I remember very clearly when Nissan finally decided to take the wraps off its new Z sports car back in 2020. The car world seemed to love it, save for one thing: The grille. The big, black-colored rectangular opening in the bumper cover drew lots of controversy when it was revealed on the prototype, and criticism continued when it went to production.
Nissan heard people’s complaints. In 2023, it released a Heritage Edition model, which placed a body-colored piece of trim through the middle of the black grille area, effectively splitting it into two openings. Today, the company revealed a refreshed version of the Z that revamps the grille entirely, making the lower portion body color and drastically changing the front end’s styling.
The thing is, Nissan had it right the first time. The big grille was excellent, and I’m sad it’s going away.
Pure And Simple, Just Like The Original
Huge grille openings were all the rage back in 2020. BMW famously revealed its current M3 and M4—the cars with some of the biggest, gaudiest grilles on the planet—that same year. So it wasn’t very surprising to see Nissan go down that same path.
While I don’t very much like BMW’s approach, I’ve always been fond of the Nissan design. It was first revealed on the Z Proto, a near-production prototype that, for the most part, showed off the road-ready version that would enter production two years later, virtually unchanged. While many were upset Nissan didn’t address their complaints, I was happy the big grille made it through unscathed.
Explaining why I prefer the Z’s original grille compared to either of its updated versions is like trying to explain why I love mint-flavored chocolate candies, while other people don’t (if you like York Peppermint Patties, shout out to you). To me, the uninterrupted black rectangle seems to fit best against the bright yellow paint, without being too busy. It’s bold, simple, and uncompromised.
That grille design was also an accurate homage to the original Nissan/Datsun S30, known domestically as the 240Z. The car was very obviously designed to be a retro callback to that original coupe, with a similar headlight design and sloping roofline. The big grille is just another design piece to harken back to the S30. People don’t really remember the original Datsun having such a big grille, since it was blocked by ugly bumpers:
It’s much more obvious when you look at an original Z without its front bumper:
It’s Only Gone Downhill From Here
My opinion shouldn’t carry much weight, of course. I’m a lowly car writer who will never be able to afford a brand-new Z. That means I’m not a part of the buyer demographic. But when I have an opinion, I feel compelled to share it here. And in my opinion, Nissan’s attempts to satiate buyers complaining about the grille have only made things worse. Just look at this:
What you’re looking at is the Nissan Z Heritage Edition, an orange-only special edition model that debuted in 2023. Even if you think it’s not as brash as the original design, you have to admit, it’s still awkward-looking. I’m sure there will be some of you who will defend this, as it also calls back on the original 240Z’s fascia, which, as I mentioned before, is cut through the middle with a bumper beam.
That’s a fair argument, and one that my colleague Jason Torchinsky made back when this car came out. But I still prefer the original. It’s cleaner and delivers more of a statement, while staying true to the car’s most pure design aspects (those aspects being the grille without any bumper). An orange piece of plastic going down the middle feels like a compromise.
The newly refreshed Fairlady Z—the name for the Japan-market Z—was revealed today at the Tokyo Auto Salon. It takes the Heritage Edition’s changes one step further. Again, we get a body-colored beam cutting through the middle of the bumper, and it’s accompanied by a resculpted lower chin area, with a reshaped lower opening.
While I do appreciate the new color and the new wheels, I worry this new bumper will look just as strange on cars with brighter paint jobs. It is more cohesive than the orange car’s setup, I’ll admit, but all of this separation a the front just seems pointless, and only serves to muddy up the once-iconic front end. If Nissan removed that central beam but kept that lower chin update, I’d be really into it.
I’m sad the original grille design will be going away for good. Nissan confirmed to The Drive earlier today that the design will also be making it Stateside in the near future, which means that weirdos like me will only have a limited amount of time before pre-refresh models disappear from dealer lots for good.
Top graphic images: Nissan
The original 240’s grille wasn’t “blocked by ugly bumpers.” The front end was a cohesive, fully-realized design of which the bumpers were a part. The gaping square wasn’t the only problem with the 400Z; it was also the vertical side strakes that together with the square grille made the front end look chopped-off. The 240z was a much slimmer car in all regards, so removing the bumper didn’t have the same effect. The green update actually looks a lot more like the red 240z example you show, where the lower dam helps to carry a line around the car. It also looks like they lengthened the nose a bit, and gave the bumper a more trapezoidal shape, which all contributes to a more dynamic front end while still referencing the source material. The little horizontal bar is neither here nor there – it’s a small part of an overall great front end update.
The split grill is like a face with two mouths. Meh
I take your point Brian, and understand it (I believe). I’ve never been that into Z cars myself (not that I’d ever say no to a clean 240/260 of course) but all three of the newer front-ends on the Z seem bearable to me. Yes, the plain big black rectangle strikes as most racecar-like, in that it’s unmarred and unadorned by needless styling, but the Fairlady one seems most cohesive and integrated for what’s really a road-going car. Each to his or her own of course. 🙂
That refreshed Z looks like something I would actually buy
I should have read your comment before my post. I totally agree.
The refresh and that green just does something right. The maroon they had for it looked good too but I could not handle the grill
Yeah, the grille was crude.
Contrarianism for the sake of contrarianism. Must be a slow news day.
It’s becoming a little tiring. I don’t care for how a lot of these articles are being framed recently
Not every one will be something that you or I personally agree with, let alone feel as passionately about.
The Autopian leans hard into contrarianism. This is really a known entity. Sometimes it wears a little thin and can get in the way of an otherwise fun collection of automotive thoughts and facts. It has nothing to do with what I agree with. It has to do with coming across as try-hard and basically click bait-y
I disagree with your appraisal. What’s here represents a specific perspetive on things automotive/etc…, but to simply consider it contrarianism, presumably for its own sake and the resulting clicks, is an error IMO. It’s a POV different from those found on other automotive websites, and were that difference intentionally muted to bring its various slants more in line with others, it’d surely be much less interesting to read.
IMO anyway.
Take a look at this guy’s other articles. This is his thing. Take a HARD stance that is different from a known opinion, generate rage and comments, profit. He’s dragging the site down.
Its almost like your trying to stir the pot. The consensus I’ve read online has unanimously positive. Most comments have been that this new front grille is an enormous improvement and should have been that way from the start. That said, its just opinion.
That’s a great shade of green!
I don’t mind the horizontal bar. In my state, a front license plate is required and might look weird floating in a sea of black grill. Although the bar has a pointy center, so I’ll be curious where the mounts for the plate will go. Probably just have a bracket that accommodates the beak. I am more worried about the rear end which really hasn’t done anything for me since the 300ZX.
You sir are making an argument based on a shaky premise. “Dismiss the bumper on the 240Z” isn’t asking us to to ignore a small detail.
That bumper is inherent to the OG Z’s design and helps make the original grille opening less of a gaping maw. And if you’re still unsure of how important it is, put side by side a racing Z with no bumper, a stock 240Z and a stock 280Z and think again.
I like the latest bumper style, it really reminds me of the S30 in my garage, unlike the lazy rectangle in the proto Z. That latest car is still a miss to me though as it looks bulky like a 350Z or a 370Z, and the first teaser really had me hoping it’d be more svelt to bring the Z back to its roots.
“hey, the X6 isn’t ugly if you just paint it with Vantablack!”
“New Kias are very attractive cars compared to Edsels”
This guy probably has zero connection with the Z or its community. He knows what Grok and a Google search told him in the 15 minutes he “researched” for this opinion piece.
Andes mints are my jam and I support your hot takes.
Yeah. I am more of an Andes mints fan myself. The mint is there, but more subtle.
As my daughter and I like to say, a hint of mint. But the i’s are pronounced with a short e sound, so “heent of meent.” Why do we say it that way? I’ll tell you, thanks for asking.
It all goes back to the Honda element commercial with the crab that says “I peench.” I’ve adapted that silly crab deeply into my personality. We peench each other as affection. That crab is really deep in my psyche. A sort of headcrab, if you will.
Better than head lice I suppose. Fortunately, we never had to go through that with our son. I don’t remember the commercial or its premise. But we did have a 2001 CR-V.
Better a head crab than another place on the body
No one tell Gordon Freeman.
From Wisconsin shock is weird since we have exactly 0 real mountains. They are delicious
I dig the Fairlady version with and without the divide. I think my issue with the regular and Heritage Editions is that unlike the classic racing Fairlady models, the rectangular grille just doesn’t fit. The classic racing versions had rectangular openings for utility, sure, but the inorganic shape still seems (to me, at least) to fit the car. For one thing, the rectangle is wider and not as tall. So even though the car’s shape is incredibly organic for the time period, the big rectangle…just works. The new shape is organic and sculpted to me, and the new trapezoid fits in with the headlights and the front end in a way that I like.
Okay Principal Skinner, it’s everyone else who is wrong, uh huh.
Hard disagree. The bisected grill looks infinitely better to me than the gaping maw. Would look even better to me if it had actual bumpers. I miss bumpers and side-impact rub strips.
Dear Brian, you are completely right about mint chocolate candy yet completely wrong about the Z grill.
I’m kind of with you, the new grille has less character. But I’m willing to forgive it for that luscious green paint (paired with the caramel-colored interior they also debuted for the update).
I would like to have any of them.
In 29 states you’re going to have to bolt a license plate in the middle of that grille anyway.
Or mount it to the side on the tow hook attachment
Can I get it with a bumper like the old 240z? If not its all a bundle of fail.
Big no to the gaping hole of a black slatted grille.
I’m going to go massively against the grain here and advocate for a return of the 5 mph bumper.
With modern materials they don’t have to be as bulky and ugly as the ones back in the 70s and 80s, but it would be great if backing into a pole or getting tagged be the car behind you didn’t cause a five digit repair bill.
A nice chrome strip across the front of that Z could look pretty sharp, and possibly help lower the insurance costs.
This isn’t a crazy take at all I’d say.
One great ability of those bumpers, along with what some consider gingerbread like chrome trim lines, is to break up expanses of plain sheet metal. I’d offer this is one reason why older cars often seem to be more visually appealing – all the sectioning eliminates otherwise blockiness or blobiness, making them seem lighter/less chunky.
I was going to write this somewhere one day, my Landrover has the best 5 mph bumpers ever. It was, and still is sort of, a 110 inch Mk2a+, it started life as an RAF transport truck, with a machine gun mount above the cab, round hatch thing, It then got sold to a film production company. After a year or so in Tunisia carting a very big generator in the back it came home (the film had mixed revues but went on to be mildly sucessful) into the gentle hands of the forestry commision. It the got a new chassis, well, not quite, it got another chassis, bolted and welded to the old one, simple stuff really except the whole drive train bit, any how the 5 mph bumpers were fabricated from old railway track At 5mph this thing will push big trees over. It has a not wholly standard engine, an engine from a trawler actually, It does not vroom, it chugs. For reasons I cannot remember (It had something to with a lady and a piano and stuff) I once found myself driving this bizarre Meccano set of a car through central London at about 5 mph. It was like the parting of the seas! Black drivers gave way, big red buses stopped and police people waved me on.
I like 5 mph bumpers!
Black cab drivers! Taxi folk!
Those are more like 25mph bumpers – and my Disco I has upgraded big-ass steel beams on the end of it too. “Your car is my crumple zone – back away”. Works a treat in Boston traffic, when combined with the general gentile scruffiness and “I don’t give a flying f” appearance of the thing.
Absolutely, gentile scruffiness, a form of insouciance that both you and I are possibly too old to genuinely get away with but it is fun. They big Bentley is back, now mechanically sound for the next hundred years which is good. The bill was mildly alarming,but hey, who needs a house anyway.
The Land Rover has a fun bit, many years ago Volvo cars had “SIPS” emblazoned upon them. On the top bit of bullhead railway track is a deep acid etched “FIDS” in the same font. A deliquinent customer (who was an award winning graphic designer, just very bad at paying his bar bill) did it, he also re-badged my Ferrari 412 as a Ford Granada and made and affixed a solid siver badge on my Porche 928 “Decadence is it’s own reward” I sold the cars, and forgave him the bar bill. Have I learned since? Time will tell.
That LR sounds like it has had some very interesting chapters of life.
It has, one day I will drop off the planet, then the toys and stories will be SEP , the LR once pulled a Unimog out of a bog!
That last little bit is very impressive. That would have made an amazing video.
It sounds like you own or owned a bar? Do you still? Where is/was it? I’d like to patronize it.
I have owned one or two, the Unimog story is connected to the Cumberland http://www.cumberlandalston.co.uk/
I no longer have any connection with it but it a good pub!
Hmmm. The closest I’ve been is Nottingham, I guess. Taking our 8-year-old son to the headquarters of Game Workshop, which he was heavily into back then, while we were on vacation/holiday in the UK. Distance-wise, we were maybe closer in Dublin a couple of years later, but there’s a water issue between there and Alston.
My kid is now 31, so that was a while ago. We all lived in Seattle back then.
I’d be curious as to how a Unimog got stuck in a bog (which seems like the great start of a poem) and how you extracted it.
My vividly painted pickup truck had a piece of rail for the front bumper. A NYC taxi cab sort of grazed the front of the truck passing me and pulling into my lane and the bumper tore the rear fender right off of the cab.
Within 8 hours no taxi would get within 10 feet of me. It made driving in NYC very relaxing
Without modern materials, they didn’t have to be as ugly – the problems were in adapting existing cars to meet the new standard, cars designed from the start for 5mph bumpers tended to integrate them reasonably well in the 1970s and 80s. The regulation was rolled back in 1982, but new cars launched for 1983 and 1984 model years often still had them due to the lead times involved
Honestly, it was a good idea – driven by the insurance industry trying to cut down on losses, and consumer friendly, too. Automakers complained about cost and weight, but they don’t seem all that concerned about weight anymore and they also don’t seem to worry much about cost, they can just bury it in yet another price increase
You’d think give how much a gentle love tap can cost to fix today, that the insurance companies would be lobbying for a return to the higher standards. I *think* it is technically still 2.5mph, but all that has to remain unscathed is that the lights all still work. The car can still need a ton of repair work, it just has to be drivable.
It may sound a little counter intuitive, but the high repair costs probably benefit the insurers. In broad strokes, X amount of every dollar you pay in premiums goes to cover losses, and Y goes to everything else (salaries, infrastructure – where Progressive shines – taxes and, not surprisingly, stock dividends, etc).
Generalizing things, while some amount of investment income factors in – they do invest premiums when they can, in theory to make money off of the investments so they don’t have to charge customers so much (yeah, right) – that ratio of X to Y tends to stay pretty constant over time, meaning when the costs associated with X goes up, they jack Y up to keep the ratio the same. Hence, your premiums go up to cover not only the increase in X but also a proportional increase in Y.
And that keeps Wall Street happy.
I don’t entirely disagree with that – but ever increasing repair and replacement costs is still a big part of the reason that auto insurance premiums are going through the roof. Sure, if they keep margins constant they just end up making more profit, theoretically. Though given insurance IS a regulated industry, that may or may not be the case all the time.
That’s why I generally drive cars that I can afford to replace without drama, and don’t buy anything but a million in public liability. Well, I have some collector cars, but the insurance on them is cheap.
Also, nobody pulls into traffic in front of a car that looks like it already had it’s first accident of the day, or breaks into a dirty car that seems to be filled with recycling. Actually, I once watched someone who was about to break into my car discover the door was unlocked, and walk off in disgust rather than even look inside.
I have no interest in driving hoopties. There is a happy medium as in all things. Ultimately, the vast majority of the cost of insuring a car is the liability coverages in most cases. The couple hundred a year for comp and collision just aren’t a big deal to me relative to what my cars are worth.
But the sorts of cars I prefer are generally not terribly expensive to insure for a dude of my age and record. Despite being a top-5 state for car insurance costs, I pay quite reasonable amounts. One more reason I have very little interest in “high performance”. Speed costs in myriad ways.
I am right there with you, though I was OK with the more svelte 2.5mph standard. Minor oopsies should not result in multiple thousands of dollars in damage. And for the love of God bring back side rub strips with them. yet another way the automakers sold a cost savings measure as “fashion and style”. And a better way of making a car look less slab-sided than goofy hack and slash body lines and wagon wheels.
I’m with you on the rub strips. My car has been rubbed on more than once. And when I got back to the airport parking lot one time last year, there was a very curious little dent in the right front fender in front of the tire and a bit of paint transfer.
The latest rub was significant, and I am debating whether to have it fixed (which may entail finding a salvage left rear door) or just leave it to be more “don’t F with me” in traffic. The car is eight years old. So, I just don’t know whether it will even be worth the expense. Still, I wince every time I walk up to get in the car.
In the late 70s, I used to bomb around Berkeley in a ’71 Peugeot 504 that had a few battle scars, and nobody tried to cut me off. That would happen often in the less banged up Datsun I had before that.
I think BMW may have been the only company that managed to make 5 mph bumpers look decent. That could be a topic for its own article.
And oh how far BMW has fallen since then. Their current front end styling is horrible.
Agreed. Far worse than the Bangle stuff. Which wasn’t great.
My Prius, inherited from my mom, is silver with shopping cart red scratches on the sides.
Total agreement, especially on ordinary cars and Normals that I’ve mentioned this to often strongly agree. It shouldn’t cost $4k because you misjudged a parking pylon by a couple mm or someone misjudged your car that way in a parking lot or some idiot in traffic bumps you slightly, never mind hits harder than that that—Athena forbid—cracks a headlight unit that’s thousands to replace on its own. Not only that, the shock absorbers do as they’re named, reducing loads to the passengers to some degree. Not likely to do much in a serious crash, but even at speeds under airbag deployment that exceed the old 5/2.5mph rating, I wouldn’t doubt they’d have the potential to reduce whiplash.
IME, the old 5/2.5 mph impact bumpers were good for a lot more than that and greatly mitigated damage even beyond. I was in a friend’s ’84 Delta 88 when he slid on black ice into a large traffic island planter made of railroad ties. Impact was something around 25 mph largely on one corner of the bumper, which spun us 180* into the other lane. Shattered two railroad ties and punched them into the frozen soil backing them. Not a mark on the Olds. My ’84 Subaru’s bumpers also got quite a work out for entertainment, primarily, but the big test was when a Sundance cut a left in front of me at the last moment at a light. Don’t know impact speed, but it was definitely over 5 mph. I sent the Sundance sideways with their bumper cover flying off into another lane. Subaru? Cracked marker light lens on the corner where I impacted the Plymouth and a crease in the fender that had already been there from teaching myself to drive in snow storms popped back out. Kicked it back in as a nearby cop who had witnessed it approached. “That’s all your damage? Damn these things are pretty tough. You kicked that car’s ass.” Nobody was hurt, so the flippant remark wasn’t inappropriate (not that I’d have cared, I had the RoW and my car was a $5 JY part fix). I also got rear-ended in traffic hard enough to push me about half a car length with the brakes on with the only sign being a line of rust flakes left on the road at the spot of impact that had been jolted loose from the inside of the chrome bumper.
As others have mentioned, it’s the cleaned up front bumper sides that’s the huge improvement. I didn’t hate the grille in the first place as it always looked reminiscent of an S30 with the bumper removed, if maybe a bit too deliberate. I could take or leave the split, which is much better on the green than the orange. Setting it inside the grille cut out was a good idea. My biggest issue with the design was mostly the roof line not looking quite right. The headlights don’t seem to flow properly, either, but that’s more of a minor gripe and cleaning up the sides underneath them helps the whole front look lighter and it eliminated the circles-under-the-eyes effect of the older bumper. Absolutely love the color!
My main gripe with this car is that it looks a foot too short. The original was long and lithe, the new one is short and stocky looking. I suppose because the original had to house that long-azz inline six, and the new one merely a V6. I agree – it just doesn’t flow quite right to be as attractive as it could be.
Oddly enough, what I actually like about the refreshed front end is the area under the headlights. It seems to me like the front quarter panel is more complete…or less busy.
(Still waiting on t-tops though)
If Nissan added t-tops I’d stop caring about what the grille looked like
The ugly bumper on the 240z still counts, and looks much better in chrome.
The race car grille shows that the un-bumpered grille of the 240z is a long, wide rectangle which still looks ok. The grille on the current grille is damn near a square which looks awful. Thank Xenu they fixed it.
I don’t think it’s the grill necessarily that really makes the difference, it’s the front end. The new green version appears much more svelte and tucked up, which brings out the 240-ness much better than the design has since 2020.
Or for that matter, since 2002 when the 350Z debuted. At least to my eyes, the front end has been way too visually heavy.
The orange car just looks awkward. The green one with the bar is far better and about equivalent in looks to the yellow for me. The green without the bar is my favorite.
Side note: I freaking love that green paint. More cars need a good green like that instead of eight shades of grayscale.
More like 50 Shades of Grayscale, especially when finalizing the purchase.
I have no idea why green isnt more prevalent, other than maybe the bright neon ones that get offered now and then.
There was a line in Meet the Parents where Jack, the ex-CIA dad compliments Greg on the green color of his rental car and asks if he chose it. He replies it was apparently just a randomly assigned car. “They Say Geniuses Pick Green. But You Didn’t Pick It.”
Owning the green Jetta (named Greta for what it’s worth) at the time made me smile when I heard that line.
My ’01 Jetta TDI was a shade of green just a little lighter than the one pictured here. I LOVED it. Baltic Green they called it. Sadly, both the car and the paint color are long gone.
Orange gives me the ick. And there’s something about yellows that my mind can’t quite figure out the exact right shade I would like for very long. The top shot yellow reminds me of a delicious frothy gelatinous dessert I’ve had somewhere but it’s a little undersaturated. And then I painted a bathroom in the late 90s with a yellow waaaaay too saturated.
The green car looks better than the yellow car and the orange car in either configuration – but that’s probably due to the smoothed and sleeker corners where the slats and thickness have been eliminated, and the smoother unfussy lower spoiler.
But you know what they all need?
A nice slim chrome bumper.
even just offering a bit of chrome trim to stick on over that bar to make it look like a slim chrome bumper would be neat, imo.