Nissan Announces 370Zki Concept for Chicago Auto Show; Proves How Little Creativity Nissan Has

TopSpeed

By Robert Moore

Published Feb 2, 2018

They Won't Give us a New Z, But They'll Throw Snow Tracks on the Current Model

Here I am going over the things to look out for at the Chicago Auto Show and what do I come across? The Nissan 370Zki. The 370Zki was announced with a rather mundane teaser video that showed nothing more than some tracks in the snow to go with the wonderful noise created by the Z’s 3.7-liter V-6 – most likely the Nismo version with 350 ponies as opposed to the standard model with 332. But that isn’t the point. The current Z has been around since 2009. That makes it nine years old as of this writing, and it’s in dire – I repeat, dire – need of replacement. Nissan has said that it’s working on a new Z-car, but there isn’t a timetable. To put it simply, Nissan refuses to kill this poor car and give us something fresh. And, when they do, it’ll (god, we sure hope not) end up being a crossover.

We’re now right smack dab in the middle of auto show season, and we’re seeing all kinds of new cars – Chevy brought out the new Silverado, Ram the new 1500, and Ford brought about the new Bullitt Mustang. Hell, even Honda came correct with a new Insight as did Toyota with the new Avalon. Meanwhile, Nissan showed up to Detroit with the never-going-to-see-production Xmotion concept and decided to showcase the GT-R next to it. No new vehicle, no hint of a new vehicle, nothing.

Fast forward a few weeks and the Chicago Auto Show is about to begin. All kinds of special editions are said to be showing up at the show. Even Toyota is bringing a trio of off-road whips for the masses. What is Nissan going to show up with? Well, it’s going to follow its usual trend: Take something that people are starting to not care about and throw some snow tracks on it. It’s becoming a trend with the brand and while vehicles like the 2017 Nissan Rogue Trail Warrior and the 2016 Winter Warrior concepts were cool and all, don’t you think doing to the Z is going a little too far? Don’t throw snow tracks on it; Create a new damn Z-car already. I’m really starting to question the creative minds over at Nissan. Do they have real people coming up with these ideas or are these ideas generation by artificial intelligence ran on an old Windows 95 machine? And yes, before the comments start coming in, I am a little butthurt – the 370Z needs to die and make way for something else already, and something that isn’t a crossover.

But, I digress.

Check out the teaser video below. There’s not much to it, but you know… why not?