SA Road Tests

Welcome

It struck me one day that people who love cabriolets, convertibles, roadsters, drop-tops, sports cars - call them what you will - are probably less concerned with who made them than with how they make their drivers feel. It's rather like motorcycles; there is an indescribable unity with Nature, a one-ness with the road and a bonding with the elements - the sun on your skin, the breeze through your hair and the living sounds of the open road.

That's why I decided to copy and paste all my cabriolet reports into a single folder where drop-top fans can find them all without having to scrabble through endless menus.

I have to warn you that it took a while to warm to the cabriolet phenomenon - convertibles are mostly loved, hankered after and driven by women, so we guys find them hard to appreciate. For that reason, you may find some of the writing a little tongue-in-cheek, sceptical or even downright chauvinist. What can I say? I'm male and I can't help it. Just bear with me though, because I believe that the stories still contain valid information that will hopefully help you make an informed buying decision.


*To read one of our road tests, just select from the drop-down menu that appears as you hover your cursor over the folder's title.
*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports, so even if you're looking to buy second-hand, you have an idea of what it cost originally.


We take the high road in the Nissan 370Z Roadster a/t with Navigation

No dynamic compromises

Published in The Witness Motoring on Wednesday October 6, 2010

Back in the days when pc was a new-fangled electronic device rather than apologetic language, a "cow catcher" was any seriously sexy automobile that made young women's knees turn to butter and their mothers' apron strings to case hardened steel.

I drove a modern version to the gym twice recently. On Monday when I arrived with the top up, it wasn't given a second glance. On Wednesday, top down, it drew appreciative comment. Those pretending indifference were betrayed by treacherous body language.

There is a fair variety of topless cabriolets, convertibles and roadsters out there these days. Most are girly cars, driven by free-spirited women of all ages, who enjoy not only the feel of the wind in their hair, but the way it makes them look - young, footloose and carefree.

Then there are exceptions; of which Nissan's brutal looking 370Z Roadster is one. This is not a feminine car, to be driven gently by some slip of a girl; it is a primal cowcatcher in Levis and Stetson, with a gunfighter glint in its eye. Those ladies I sort of know from the gym didn't ask to be allowed to drive - it was: "Let us know if you want company." (I know there are women who pilot monster trucks, F1 racers, nitro-fuelled dragsters and huge bikes, while one of my favourite motoring writers has counted a Porsche 911 as her daily transportation, but …)

Most convertibles are born from coupés, with the roof removed and extra body stiffening added. This one was developed alongside its hardtop twin, from the ground up, as a convertible; two engineering projects, separate but similar, with two slightly different goals. The result is a sophisticated silhouette with a more natural integration of the roof into the overall design and no dynamic compromises. According to Nissan you get the same dramatic performance, road holding and rear-wheel drive handling as the 370Z Coupé, but with the added bonus of fresh air fun.

Unlike conventional "afterthought" design, this one's hydraulically powered folding top tucks away into a dedicated compartment between the seats and the boot, so you don't have to sacrifice luggage space when the roof is stowed. The boot still isn't huge, but it's fair at 140 litres vs 213 on the coupé.  Because the Z is fitted with two different sizes of wheels and tyres, the spare is a spacesaver.

Oh, you want just the facts, ma'am? It's a 3 696 cc DOHC aluminium alloy straight six developing 245 kW at 7 000 rpm and 363 Nm of torque at 5 200 rpm. Zero to 100 km/h comes up in a claimed 5,5 seconds in manual form and is three-tenths of a second slower in automatic. The bonus is that the seven-speed auto uses less fuel - a claimed 10,9 l/100 vs 11,2 for the six-speed manual version. The secret is in slightly longer gearing at the top end and more effective transmission lock up than on most others.

I told you how I felt about the coupé version with automatic transmission in the story alongside. This is the same; a hum-dinger of a sports car made for the two of you to grow old together - well equipped but not ultra luxurious, responsive but not ultra refined, grossly impractical but orgasmic as hell.

The only difference is that you can now drive it with the wind in your hair. Two caveats: there is slightly more wind experience than on some other makes of cabriolet, so you may need to take a hairbrush with you and this one doesn't automatically re-lift the windows after opening or closing the roof. You need to pull on the buttons to do that.

Other impressions: the nose is longer than you think it is, so be careful when parking, the back window on the soft top looks really narrow but it's actually big enough and the screen on the optional satnav and music device displays full track information when using a flash drive. I can't comment on iPod experience at present, because a baggage handler at O R Tambo International decided to do some shopping in my locked suitcase when I returned from covering a launch in Maputo recently.

It is said that life experience is written in your karma and is placed there deliberately in order to help you grow. I don't regret my past at all, but where was the Nissan 370 Zee Roadster back then in my youth when I could really have used one?

The numbers
Price: R593 800
Engine: 3 696 cc DOHC inline six
Power: 245 kW at 7 000 rpm
Torque: 363 Nm at 5 200 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h (claimed): 5,8 seconds
Maximum speed: 250 km/h (governed)
Real life fuel consumption: about 11,5 l/100 km
Tank: 72 litres
Warranty: 3 years/100 000 km
Service plan: 3 years/90 000 km


What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that road test cars entrusted to me are driven only by me. Some reviewers hand test cars over to their partners to use as day-to-day transport and barely experience them for themselves.

What this means to you is that every car reviewed is given my own personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every car goes through real world testing; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

My articles appear every Wednesday in the motoring pages of The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles most months of the year (press cars are withdrawn over the festive season - wonder why?) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police. Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so I do actually exist.

I am based in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa. This is the central hub of the KZN Midlands farming community; the place farmers go to buy their supplies and equipment, truck their goods to market, send their kids to school and go to kick back and relax.
So occasionally a cow, a goat or a horse may add a little local colour by finding its way into the story or one of the pictures. It's all part of the ambience!

Comments?
Want to ask a question, comment or just tell me you thoroughly disagree with what I say? That's your privilege, because if everybody agreed on everything, the world would be a boring place. All I ask is that you remain calm, so please blow off a little steam before venting too vigorously.