How about this theory... I do not recall when the Z32 300zx first came out, I was too young, however what amazes me is that it was made around the same time as the VL/VN commodore. The VL/VN now looks very dated, however for some reason the zed has held it's appealing looks over the test of time. This is very hard and the zed does it better than any car I can think of, even the R32s and silvias/180sx have aged terribly. The 300zx compared to the commodores of the time looks far ahead of it's time. The 350Z may not look all that great now but perhaps in a few years it will prove to be ahead of its time, and maybe it will continue to look good for years. For now I don't much like it, it is bland lack-luster and seems a very generic tactic to catch onto the recent spate of remakes (beetle, cooper S, monaro, and all the remakes in America). In general I feel as though times of late have been filled with remakes/updates and in general there seems to be a complete lack of originality going on in the world. Look at movies for example, there were I think a total of 28 sequals last year more than any previous year, and on top of that you have movies based on books & comics (Hulk, X-Men, Fan 4, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, etc.) it is rare these days to see an original movie. The so called original movies are usually following a blue print of something that has already been done. Then there is music, well I could rest my case on the little spastic frog making it to number one in the UK, but you have TV shows based on voting on peoples ability to sing other peoples songs!! There are also many song getting redone as techno or even just copies (except in music they call it covers) i.e. Black Betty. So what does all this mean? Well at one stage I had a theory that we (the world) had experienced very high levels of originality and creativity in the 60s and 70s and perhaps we had just no hit a bit of a lull. However now I am more likely to think about it in a more cynical but logical sense, that is if you were a movie/music producer or designing cars or whatever would you rather take a punt on a radical or original or creative idea, or stick to something with a brand that is guarenteed to sell based on it's name or badge?? What I mean is, there is no motivation for a company to spend big or take a risk on innovation or creating something unique or new, when they can just take something old and revamp it a little (I think they like to call it retro - so it sounds cool) and then sell it based on what it once was??? That is my little theory, after writing it all out it has become clear that I have way too much spare time.
Unfortunatly... the skyrocketing oil prices, and perhaps the future lack of oil (supply not meeting demand especially now China is becoming a big player). Not to mention new innovative technologies in using alternative fuel being created to address the problem with high running costs (eg electric power) and people switching to LPG etc will see the demise of almost any car that uses 'petrol' as we know it in a few decades, due to the fact there will be no cars built in the future to use it so there will be very little appeal for the old cars. Just my thoughts. Just means in the future we will need our zeds powered by something else :zlove:
It's not all that bad. Sure the 350Z looks like a bucket of smashed crabs, but on the other hand the new RX-8 is really classy in my opinion. It shows the modern designers can still do it if they try. However, the Nissan design team seem ot have lost the plot at the moment - but they are still a long way in front of say Renault, whose designers must be on mind altering chemicals. Cheers:zlove: Barry
