2023 Nissan Z launch delayed until summer

In early March, there was some kerfuffle in the Nissan Z world when a slide uploaded to Facebook purported to lay out the launch timeline for the all-new 2023 Z. By now, we expected to be close enough to launch to be able to hear the clacking of abacuses as Nissan dealers settled on how much ADM to add. The automaker releasing pricing in Japan yesterday was supposed to be good news. Instead, at the bottom of the Japanese press release announcing the required yen to take on home, a footnote declared, "The release date was originally scheduled for late June, but due to the recent impact of parts supply, it has been changed to this summer. The release schedule may change depending on the parts supply situation." When Car and Driver inquired with Nissan North America about our situation, the outlet received the same answer: "There has been a slight delay to the summer of 2022."

If we're going strictly by the Earth's rotation, this moves the previous spring 2022 deadline from the summer solstice on June 21 to the final day of summer, the autumnal equinox date of September 22 this year. On the one hand, that's only 90 days. On the thousands of other hands desperate to throw their money at the new coupe, there's nothing to say the summer date will hold. We haven't heard about the global situation getting any better. 

Pricing in Japan for an entry-level Fairlady Z with either a six-speed manual or nine-speed automatic starts at ¥5,241,500 ($41,200 U.S.). That's about $2,000 more than the entry-level, 2.0-liter four-cylinder Toyota Supra over there. Nissan has said the base Z Sport here will come in around $40,000, our four-banger Supra starts at $43,290 before destination. The Z's special sauce is that all trims come with a 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 with 400 horsepower and 350 pound-feet of torque. It takes another $10,000 to get close to that in the Supra, making the Z a potential performance bargain if it would just get here.

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