The top brass at Nissan are moving as fast and furious as they can to implement a huge turnaround plan. The new CEO, Ivan Espinosa, who’s only been in the hot seat for just over a year now, told The Drive in February to tell enthusiasts, “Nissan is back.” It’s natural for enthusiasts, fans, pundits, and anyone with a pulse to be skeptical, but with an executive team made up of enthusiasts, it might possibly be time for the automaker to make an unexpected comeback. In Yokohama, Japan, Senior Vice President and Chief Planning Officer for Nissan North America, Ponz Pandikuthira, told The Drive exclusively on the latest episode of The Drivecast, “I do see performance upgrades in the future of the Z, that twin turbo is capable of a lot more power and output that are compatible obviously with the latest emissions.” Further, Pandikuthira continued, “So I do see performance versions coming out, special limited series.” Listen to the entire conversation starting at the moment Pandikuthira mentioned performance upgrades to the Z along with limited edition models. Later in the conversation Pandikuthira acknowledged that the Z’s VR30DTT twint-turbo 3.0-liter V6, which is rated at 400 horsepower in most models and boosted to 420 hp in Nismo trim, is tuned conservatively. The SVP didn’t disagree with the fact that many tuners and enthusiasts are easily eking 500 hp out of the Z’s powertrain reliably without issue. The Z itself is having a moment and it’s thanks to an unlikely hero: your parents. Pandikuthira told The Drive at the 2026 New York auto show earlier in the month that, “The one very interesting thing about who’s buying Z today, there’s a lot of people who lusted after this car when they were teenagers and maybe in their 20s, and they couldn’t afford it. And then the car kind of just, you know, lost its way a little bit. They were never really enthused. But they love this version. So we’re getting a lot of older buyers coming and buying this car, as a trophy car, a retirement car, whatever else. And so the Z performance version is selling extremely well. There is a narrow niche that loves us for track use and stuff. They’re buying the Nismo.” “These are the people who lusted after the car, and they’re like, I love it in that maroon color. I want that British racing green. I want this tan, you know, camel interior seats. I wanted to be in a manual, not this. So, go ahead, let them spec it out. They are willing to wait because this is not somebody who’s using this car to get to work every day. So they’re willing to wait 3 to 6 months, the time it takes to build it, ship it over here,” Pandikuthira went on at the auto show. And that buyer set is the exact reason Nissan plans to lean in on more limited-edition models, according to Pandikuthira. The Z itself is about to be harder to get your hands on for 2027 as the automaker shifts to more of a build-to-order model. If things go well with the turnaround plan, and Z sales continue to trend in the right direction, Pandikuthira said, “I would like nothing more than to see a convertible version of the Z out there.” It shouldn’t be a shock that the enthusiast-based executive team are leaning into the passion models. Espinosa told The Drive, “The sports cars are the core of what we are as a company.” That comment came seconds after the CEO told The Drive “We’re actually working already on the GT-R.” Later after Espinosa’s comments, Richard Candler, the man in charge of Nissan’s global corporate product strategy, told The Drive “We are really deeply looking at the sports [car] lineup again. We all want to do some cool cars.” This is all before addressing the fact that the Xterra is coming back alongside an entire frame-based family of vehicles. Nissan wants to be exciting again, and frankly, if things work out it seems like for enthusiasts it might be. Now it just need to sell some Rogues so we all get limited-edition and higher-performance Z variants.
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