Fairlady Z

The Fairlady name goes back to 1960s Nissan, borrowed with the company president's blessing from the Broadway musical My Fair Lady. Sold abroad as the Datsun 240Z and later simply “Nissan Z,” it became one of the most successful sports cars Japan ever exported. The Z33 generation you see here, launched in 2002 and sold internationally as the 350Z, was the model that revived the nameplate after a five-year hiatus and a turbocharged, gadget-heavy Z32 era.

Where the outgoing 300ZX had chased complexity — twin turbos, four-wheel steering — the Z33 went back to basics: a naturally aspirated 3.5-liter V6, rear-wheel drive, and a six-speed manual, wrapped in a shape drawn by Nissan Design America under the company's post-bankruptcy revival push led by Carlos Ghosn. It was a return to the original Z formula: an affordable, honest, front-mid-engine sports car built for driving, not spec-sheet bragging rights.

That honesty is exactly why the Z33 became a fixture of Tokyo Bay car culture. Cheap enough to modify hard, powerful enough to hang with cars twice its price, and rear-wheel drive enough to be endlessly tunable for grip or drift, it earned a permanent spot at Daikoku PA and on the Wangan Line — the same neon-lit stretch of expressway ARTCARS still runs its guided night drives on today.