The 2023 Nissan Z Review

What's old is new again. In the nissan z's case, literally. The good news is that Nissan saved a bunch of money on the new Z by using all the stuff that wasn't broken on the old 370Z, which afforded the automaker the funds to fit a 400-hp 3.0-liter twin-turbo V-6 engine under the sports car's hood. We hope Nissan's kept a few dollars in its back pocket to invest in a new-gen Z Nismo. The formula seems pretty straightforward: Take the regular Z, and make it more special. We decided to imagine what one would look like.

The red pinstripes around the extended skirts and splitters are a no-brainer, a key signature of the modern Nismo design language. A couple of subtle hood inlets give a nod to the twin turbos below while also borrowing a page from the Z's larger (and soon-to-be-departed) GT-R stablemate. To this, we added some fender extractor vents for a little more aggressiveness. Some red-accented inlets below the headlights help balance one part of the new Z's design where a lack of detail leaves the car looking a little sparse. Around back, red pinstriping accents the rear diffuser. Instead of howitzer-sized twin pipes, though, our Z Nismo gets beveled quad units flanking a more squared-off diffuser. A large, distinct wing inspired by the GT-R Nismo leaves no doubt about this car's performance pretense. Blacked-out brightwork on the side of the roof draws more attention to the go-fast looks below. If a new Z Nismo follows the formula of its predecessor, then expect the model to feature reworked suspension tuning, branded strut tower braces, improved brakes, and a small power bump say, an extra 15-25 hp. Will Nissan actually build a Z Nismo? We haven't heard, officially or otherwise, anything yet. Consider this a nudge to the company, then. Z enthusiasts are interested, we're interested, the car's tooling and development are already mostly amortized … give us an ultimate Z, please!

Opinion: congrats, George Russell… but what if next year’s Mercedes F1 car is rubbish?

George Russell has got his richly deserved seat at one of the top teams in Formula One. Only problem is, unless Lewis or Valtteri get caught short or taken ill and Toto Wolff needs his 23-year old super-sub again, he won’t actually don his new black overalls until 2022. And that opens an interesting question:

Will Mercedes be any good at F1 next year?

If you’ve only been watching Formula One since you heard about it on Drive To Survive, then you’re rolling your eyes over backwards and plunging headlong into the comments. Who could doubt the dominance of Merc? They’ve won every championship of the turbo-hybrid era, 2014-2020. Seven on the spin and in the hunt for an eighth. 

Thing is, the rules change big-time for 2022. Bigger wheels mean new tyres and rethought suspension. The wings and bodywork are totally changing tack to encourage closer racing, more overtaking and reimagine how an F1 car generates its vital downforce.

And, hopefully, the cars will cease being trickier to follow than a Christopher Nolan screenplay.

But when the rules change big-time for F1, there’s usually one team that susses it out, and sprints off into the distance while everyone else scowls at the rulebook. 

Take 2009: wider front wings, taller rear wings, much cleaner bodywork and a return to slick tyres. McLaren, Ferrari and BMW foundered. The championship was won by the dregs of the Honda F1 team, bought out by Ross Brawn, competing in a car that barely had any sponsorship. But it did have a clever diffuser that clawed back lots of the lost downforce. And Jenson Button got his title.

By 2010, Adrian Newey had got his act together, and Red Bull scored four championships on the bounce. And then promptly slumped into oblivion during the early years of the turbo-hybrid rules. Cue Mercedes steamrollering from 2014 onwards.

Even in what are considered some of F1’s glory days - the Senna/Prost rivalry of 1989, or Mika vs Michael in the McLaren/Ferrari duel on the late 1990s - there’s almost never a multi-team fight for the championship. One team will get it pretty much spot on, and another might run them close. If we’re lucky. 

Is it guaranteed that Mercedes will still be a front-runner when everyone has to show their homework next season? I wouldn’t say so. Sleeping giants like McLaren and Ferrari will have been concentrating on the 2022 regs for a while now. Mercedes said it had stopped upgrading 2021’s car to focus on the rule change, but then backtracked and promised it was still working flat-out to keep Lewis’s car in the hunt against a mightily impressive Max Verstappen in a championship-worthy Red Bull.

Official: the Pagani Huayra’s V12-engined successor arrives in 2023

News from the tiny island of Pagani; home to the world’s smallest hypercar population and everlasting sunshine. The successor to the Huayra will arrive in 2023 - a couple of years behind schedule - and it’ll come with a turbocharged Mercedes-AMG V12.

Bearing the internal codename ‘C10’, this bespoke new hypercar will feature the 6.0-litre biturbo V12 that AMG builds especially for the boutique Italian carmaker, likely in a higher state of tune. Which is only lightly terrifying considering the Roadster BC pumps out 791bhp and 774lb ft of torque.

Boss Horacio Pagani told TopGear.com that this engine was developed following at first a consultation with Pagani customers, and then with AMG to build something that’d last for a good few years.

“When we looked at different scenarios [for the Huayra successor’s powertrain], we gave priority to the customers,” Mr Pagani told TG. “We talked to them and tried to understand what they would prefer.

“In the end, none of them were interested in an electric Pagani or a hybrid version. Rather, they expressed the desire to once again have a car that is light and easy to drive. This meant a journey of hard work with Mercedes-AMG lasting more than 72 months, to create the new Pagani V12 engine to achieve extraordinary power and torque and to equip a car like the Roadster BC that weighs less than 1,300kg.

“An engine which in its second version will power the C10 project and will comply with all emission requirements and regulations until 2026-2027,” he added. There might even be a possible extension to that cut-off point (Pagani don’t forget, makes less than 50 cars a year).

What about post-2027, though? AMG – and Mercedes of course – will sell only electric cars from 2030 onwards, making it only slightly awkward for Pagani. When we asked AMG boss Philipp Schiemer what would happen to Horacio’s engines in the future, he simply acknowledged that he was “a good friend of AMG’s” and that the two are “in constant contact”.

Horacio himself was far more clear. “For over three years now, despite the fact that no customer or dealer has ever expressed any interest in this direction, we have been working on a project for a car with an alternative drive,” he said. It echoes what he exclusively told TopGear.com back in 2019: the bombshell news that Pagani was working on an electric hypercar.

Back then, Pagani was already a couple of years deep into the project and estimated the battery development alone would cost somewhere in the region of €20million. “The real challenge here is the weight,” he told us back in 2019. “The Rimac C_Two is beautiful and impressive, but it’s just so heavy. The Chiron is so amazing, but terribly heavy.

Our Huayra is lighter, and can pull more lateral G. The real challenge is to make [the EV] a lightweight car. This is what Pagani customers want. A lightweight, beautiful to look at car with many details.”

The Lotus Emira is going racing - Car News

Good news everyone: Lotus is taking the superb-looking Emira racing. The Emira GT4 is being developed with help from RML Group – yup, the company behind the Nissan Juke R currently developing its own reimagined Ferrari 250 GT SWB – and will be ready to compete in 2022.

Power comes from the same 3.5-litre Toyota V6 you can get in the road car. It’ll rev to 7,200rpm and depending on BoP regs, should make around 400bhp. The six-speed sequential transmission is from xTrac, the suspension is by Bilstein, the brakes by Alcon and the tyres by Pirelli. Naturally everything is built to FIA specs.

Lotus says the GT4 “marks the start of an exciting new era in performance GT racing” for the company, and that its “return to world motorsport is a key pillar of the company’s transformation”. Earlier this year Lotus Engineering announced a partnership with Jenson Button’s Extreme E team.

The Emira GT4 effectively takes over from the Evora GT4, which has won many races the world over. The official launch of the new car takes place later this year, and Lotus says it hopes to have the first cars ready for the 2022 season. Production will be ramped up for 2023 in line with demand.