Nissan 370Z Nismo is a boy racer with a grown-up price: Motoramic Drives

Considering the motorsports pedigree of Nismo, which includes racing in the 24 Hours of Le Mans with the Batman-inspired DeltaWing, Nissan’s performance arm never enjoyed the same mainstream respect as Mercedes-Benz’s AMG or BMW’s M division. And no wonder: Instead of producing sports cars on steroids, it slapped together mild tuning packages on humble rides like the Nissan Frontier. Thankfully, it realized that sprucing up trucks and compacts wouldn’t cut it, and gave the 2014 Nissan 370Z a flashy makeover. But did the street-racer visuals match what’s within?

Well, no—at least, not enough to burn an extra 10 grand.

What’s deceptive is that it looks menacing enough to slay lesser Porsches, compliments of its park-bench sized spoiler and a nose sloped like a Shinkansen bullet train. A bit too loud for my taste, but I may be in the minority; young valets were awestruck, and Mustang GTs buzzed around car like angry hornets trying to drag race me at stoplights. I wished Nissan focused more on the cabin instead; the Nismo-embroidered seats felt stock, and the red-accents couldn’t redeem the sea of glossy plastics that belong in a Versa.