Top Cars

Yesterday Nissan confirmed the launch of the 2009 370Z at the Los Angeles motor show and today AutoCar reveals the best info ever. 370Z will be "very much an evolution of the current car but with an even greater emphasis on agility", according to the company’s design chief, Shiro Nakamura.

The new car’s name, 370Z, signifies the enlargement of the V6 engine’s capacity to 3.7 litres. In this form it produces 326bhp when installed in the US-market Infiniti G37 coupé, to which the Z is closely related. That’s a useful improvement on the 309bhp of the current 350Z, and torque increases slightly from the 264lb ft of today’s car to 270lb ft at 5200rpm.

The coupe version will be followed by a roadster version, but a potential new addition could be a diesel version, that, if Nissan wants to compete with Audi on the European market.