When I drove the Nissan Z Nismo back in 2023, I was blown away by its impressive chassis tuning and strong twin-turbo V-6. It was a far better car than the base Z, save for one problem: the only transmission was a nine-speed torque converter automatic. It wasn’t a bad gearbox, per se, but it didn’t fit the character of the car, and spoiled the experience.
Well, two years later, the Japanese carmaker has finally decided to address my (and many other enthusiasts’) concerns. In an interview with Automotive News, Nissan Americas Chairperson Christian Meunier confirmed the Z Nismo would finally be getting the third pedal it always deserved.
When asked about which upcoming products he was most excited about, Meunier spilled the beans on the upcoming stick shift option.
I love Z. So obviously, Z is very exciting. We have a lot of special editions in the pipeline. We have a Nismo manual transmission coming. We have a lot of exciting things happening on the Z side.
Meunier didn’t reveal any other details, like when the manual might become available, or if it would cost any more than the automatic model. A Nissan spokesperson did not immediately respond when reached by The Autopian via email.
Source: Nissan
The lack of a manual transmission came as a surprise when the model was launched, but Nissan’s director of advanced product planning, Paul Hawson, told Road & Track back in 2023 that the customers it talked to preferred outright speed over driver connection and nostalgia. From that interview:
Our process is that way. So the customers we talked to, when it comes to the Nismo, they were track-oriented people. These are people that are concerned about lap times, they’re not concerned about the nostalgia for Z. We have something for that. It’s the Z. This one, in particular, is lap time and performance, and it is faster. If you benchmark it, look at other manufacturers that are making sports cars, a lot of them are two-pedal now. Even the upper grade, performance versions are two-pedal because it is faster.
But even back then, Hawson admitted that if there was enough demand, Nissan could make a manual Z Nismo happen.
Because we’re so customer-oriented, if there’s a groundswell of “I’ve got to have this in manual,” we can do it. It’s just, again, for the purity of the concept, it was about lap times.
While customer demand (and Nissan’s desire to launch nearly 20 new or updated models this year) likely led to the manual Z Nismo’s creation, its closest competitor, the Supra, might’ve also had something to do with it. That car also launched without a manual transmission, back in 2020, before customer demand led Toyota to release a manual version in 2022. By the end of 2024, more than half of all Supras leaving dealerships had three pedals.
Source: BMW
The manual transmission has seen a localized surge in demand elsewhere in the sports car segment. The Supra’s sibling car, the BMW Z4 convertible, got a manual variant last year. It didn’t take long for buyers to notice. By the end of 2024, 65 percent of Z4s sold in America had stick shifts.
Nissan, smartly, is just trying to captialize on this wave of demand for sub-$100,000 stick shift sports cars. The result is a good car made great. Hopefully, anyway. I still need to drive it to find out for sure.
Top photo: Nissan
If there’s one class of cars that needs a stick it’s (relatively) low powered sports cars. Even if they aren’t actually faster, they feel faster.
Well, and cheap econoboxes-those are good for them too.
With this success under your belt: go tell Subaru they need a hatch on the WRX.
Automatic transmissions don’t belong in sports cars. If Toyota had offered a manual in the Supra back in 2021 my dad wouldn’t have had to trade it in for a Z4 last year.
If Nissan offers financing at 0% APR 60 months for this, you’ll see a lot of these at your local trackday.
“I love Z. So obviously, Z is very exciting. We have a lot of special editions in the pipeline. We have a Nismo manual transmission coming. We have a lot of exciting things happening on the Z side.”
Is this guy related to Trump?
One could only hope NOT. Hoping this is just part of a language barrier or translation.
This car has been out for almost three years and I’ve officially seen two, neither of them Nismos.
Shame, that. It’s a nice looking car, and that blue interior is a breath of fresh air.
Also, I’ll echo what Nsane said about not offering the stick for improved lap times as being a load of marketing baloney. I bet there are plenty of track drivers who enjoy the process of optimizing shifts, heel and toeing, etc. in order to wring the best times out of their cars. I guess eventually people will be able to do that in a Nismo model.
If anyone bothers buying it. $66K? Ouch.
I think I’ve seen around 2 of them myself.
Nevermind the MSRP, crappy dealers will slap a markup on top of that. They were slapping five figure adjustments on the Z’s when they first came out, so nobody bothered trying to buy them.
Nissan dealers drastically overplayed their hand. There were other competent options on the market, and that’s where the buyers went.
I’m pretty sure the stick would improve laptimes simply by being a good transmission. The automatic is good by 2015 standards, but it’s nowhere near as fast as the Supra or any ZF on the market.
I did not hate these when they came out like many did. I thought the design pulled off modern-retro well, but it never grabbed me as a car I would want.
Flash forward a couple years and I’m now thinking of replacing my car with something fun as the family-hauler gets most of the use in this household….and the Z is getting more and more appealing. Which surprises me.
Of course it will cost more with a manual. This is the kind of car I would want with a manual. The lap time thing is bogus. It is about catering to the people who always buy the top trim/model level of everything just because. Those people want an automatic. Those are the same people who but the Wrangler Rubicon because it is the most expensive and never touch dirt.
As you all know I’m far from a manual diehard and I find the most vocal of the manual fanatics to be some of the most insufferable people in the car community…but this is a case when it made absolutely no sense not to offer it. It’s a ridiculously compromised, two seat sports car that exists for driving pleasure. All of those should have a manual option.
Also the “muh lap times” excuse is baloney. 9/10 of these if not more will never see a track day…and I feel like the seemingly omnipresent “I want an automatic to maximize my times” focus group member is a figment of manufacturers’ imaginations. Anyway I’m happy to see how hard this generation of Z is depreciating because I’d love to consider one as a weekend car down the line…as long as it’s manual.
Plus it’s not even like this car gets a good auto anyway. It’s not a DCT or a ZF8 or whatever…it’s an old 9 speed torque converter they also use in their body on frame trucks. No thanks.
Just chiming in to say my usual piece: “no manual, no care”. Everyone is obsessed with automatics these days. There’s nothing wrong with people saying they’re not interested in a car if it doesn’t come in manual.
Nothing wrong other than the fact that it’s redundant, annoying, and it doesn’t add anything to the conversation. The best way to show your undying love of manual transmissions is to buy new cars that have them. Manufacturers don’t read blog comments, but they do look at sales data.
I think I have seen a new Z on the road. Whether Nissan doesn’t want to sell them or people don’t want to buy them, I am not sure. But given how few Zs are on the road and the end of the Supra and Camaro, and Mustang sales tanking, I doubt a manual Z is going to move the needle. Meanwhile, Civic Type-R and Si sales are actually up a bit.
Honda’s manual only schtick is a major selling point too. There are a lot of gatekeepers out there.
Edit: re: the S650 Mustang no shit it isn’t selling. It’s too damn expensive, it kind of looks like shit, and it’s a reskin of the S550. Ford totally borked that car…
I prefer the newer Mustang’s exterior over the last generation’s. The interior, on the other hand, is an abomination. The bigger trend is that the high-power RWD coupe segment is just about dead. My feeling is that since anyone driving them on the street doesn’t gain anything with incremental power and performance increases, the category’s reason for existing has faded.
But mostly it is the fact that for a number of years, fewer and fewer young folks have any desire to bother with cars. Very few are worried about getting a driver’s license right away and put no social weight on what you drive.
In the grand scheme of things, this is likely a net positive, but it will surely shift what cars are being sold.
With the youths I think interest in tuner cars has been reinvigorated and that pony cars are dangerously close to being considered cringe. I also think the vast majority of kids these days are very, very concerned about the environment and the future of our planet and that that makes massive, overweight, gas guzzling muscle cars as much harder sell. They’re also interested in electrification.
I remember everyone collectively shitting their britches when it was revealed that Ford had been testing a hybrid Mustang with a clutch less manual…but I think it would’ve appealed to a shockingly wide array of potential buyers. Of course they axed it and now all American manufacturers are just going to shove V8s in everything they can for the next 3 years…but as I’ve said several times I don’t think that’s going to be sustainable.
The crowd that finds big, thirsty, NA engines appealing is going to age out sooner or later and the second gas prices surge again the mall crawler crowd is going to be blowing up Tik Tok complaining about how they can’t afford to fill up their Wrangler 392s anymore.
I agree that what you describe is part of it, but I would argue only at the margins. The bigger trend is not caring about cars in general.
As of 2023, only 33% of eligible drivers aged 19 or under held a license, down from 45% in 2003. Also, just 25% of 16-year-olds had a driver’s license in 2020, compared to 43% in 1997. Similarly, only 42% of 17-year-olds were licensed in 2021, down from 62% in 1997.
Those are massive drops at ages when hobbies and interests are formed. They show the degree to which interest in cars has receded.
The truth is that new cars are fairly lame. For people who started liking cars decades ago (even F&F first appeared 24 years ago) continue to be interested in new models largely due to momentum. But for younger folks, cars with massive HP and speed hold very little appeal, whether they are ICE or EV, because their capabilities are pointless anyplace other than a track. All the conversations around performance variances and modifications are mute, and those conversations were the social pathways that tied a community together. They are gone and aren’t coming back.
The ever-smaller (and aging) group that has an interest in cars simply needs to accept this and adjust.
Car culture dying is NOT a net positive. It’s a negative.
For people who only care about car culture, sure. But not for humanity in general. The same thing was said when kids started caring about cars rather than horses.
I’m not sure why more enthusiasts don’t get this. More people biking is good. More mass transit is good. Less carbon emissions are good. Getting normies out of cars helps our cause. I’d be perfectly happy with cars moving from absolute necessity to a niche interest in my lifetime.
Everyone needing them to survive is ridiculously wasteful, classist, and dangerous. It’s a massive net negative for humanity. So leave some extra room for the cyclists on your commute, take the train when you can, etc.
I’d think that anyone willing to drive a modern Nissan and wanting to set all-out laptimes would buy a GTR.
Personally I’d have a hard time coughing up Nismo Z money while Supra / Z4 exists.
GTRs are really fucking expensive though. Even a roached one that was ridden hard, put away wet, and has 100,000 miles on it is a $70,000 car these days. You’re not going to find one for anywhere near Nismo Z money unless you’re cool with rolling the dice on a salvage title.
Plus, I’m completely confident that any Godzilla with multiple owners is going to have been hooned within an inch of his life….because bro, it’s a GTR, bro
For the lap time difference between a manual and automatic transmission to matter, the car should essentially be a stripped down machine with a roll cage.
If you are going there, just get a salvage GTR (~100k mile clean title ones are showing up for under $60k now). If you’re not going there, the difference in shift times makes no difference in your life.
No, GTRs drive themselves. No thanks. Some people just want to be able to row the gears (and press in a clutch pedal) themselves. It’s not all about squeezing the last tenth out of a lap time, and I blame auto journalists for shilling that for decades now.
It’s absurd to me that Nissan looked at the runaway success of Porsche GT models with manuals (GT3, S/T, GT4, etc) and said “Yeah those Porsche track specials might be selling super well with manuals but we want our car to be all about lap times. Because that’s why someone would buy a Z Nismso, for track times, when faster cars exist new and used at that price point. Glad they came around, but it was truly a baffling decision.
Bingo, finally a correct take on this!
Now, to continue to pester the ever-loving shit out of the Corvette team to find a way to put a manual in the C8
Footwell in the C8 is too narrow for three pedals and two white New Balance shoes.
I just don’t think it’s going to happen. That platform was designed from the ground up for the DCT and the mid engine layout would really complicate things. Unfortunately it’s not a simple case of “just throw a Tremec in it”. They’d also have to completely rethink the center console/infotainment system to fit it.
They already fixed the infotainment center console area to fit a a shifter, and at least one C8 test mule had a manual, so they definitely evaluated the situation, and it’s not like they have to EPA test anything now (last bit is /sarcasm, but also not, but yeah, fuck.)
My monkey brain: yay, more V8s
My actual brain: I don’t think completely killing emissions and fuel economy standards is going to end well for our beloved planet
Don’t worry, all of the little sub 2.5L turbo cars that don’t get sticker MPG aren’t being replaced by V8s, and someone who specifically wants a V8 isn’t cross shopping an EV anyway.
I mean, you have to consider volume though. Putting a V8 in a sedan or sports car going to make a damn difference in the grand scheme of things and I’ll happily acknowledge that. However, making the most destructive, wasteful, popular class of vehicles (BOF trucks) even less efficient than they already are because many people consider being wasteful a flex and don’t feel secure in their identity without making V8 sounds every day is going to cause some problems, unfortunately.
I don’t think it’s been responsible to place blame on climate change solely on individuals and I understand why people are fed up with it…but feeding into mass hysteria and vibez to sell millions more inefficient vehicles when we’re nearing (or at, depending on which study you’re reading) the point of no return is uniquely stupid to me.
I’m not even Mr. Hurr Durr big gubment over here but unfortunately when people can’t be trusted to make decisions that benefit anyone but themselves (aka like 2/3rds of this country) then regulations have to step in sometimes.
The Corvette team thinks they’re selling against Ferrari.
Despite the great performance numbers, I doubt anybody is walking away from a new Ferrari to buy a Vette. If you’re able to buy a new Ferrari, you already have a Ferrari. You’re locked into that ecosystem.
When there’s a will, there’s a way. For some reason they have no will.