Nissan Z Roadster being discontinued

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Nissan will discontinue production on the Fairlady Z Roadster, a popular but slow-selling variant of the 370Z, with the last being made in September.

Nissan has announced that production of the Fairlady Z Roadster, known to the rest of the world as the 370Z Roadster, will end production on September 30 of this year. This indicates that no 2015 model for the Roadster will be in the offing. The good news?

This announcement affects the Japanese market only. The Fairlady Z, as the 370Z is known there in honor of the long history the Fairlady has with the Nissan sports car line. According to Nissan, demand for the Roadster in Japan has been low since the beginning, but has dipped far enough now that they don't believe it's tenable to continue the convertible's production for Japanese buyers.

That means that this fun little two-seater, open-top will continue in the U.S. and elsewhere. The 370Z is up for a redesign soon as well, which may be something Nissan will wait for before re-introducing a Roadster again. Current convertible sales for the Z in Japan have been under 800 units so far this year. Good, but not great numbers for a specialty car in a market that already buys convertibles only in small numbers.

With the release of the new 370Z NISMO for the 2015 model year, it seems that Nissan is pushing for some last-days sales of the Z car before introducing a new design. The company, we found out, plans to splash Detroit this year with the introduction of a completely redesigned Titan pickup truck (and, we can infer, of the smaller Frontier) and would need a sports car offering to balance that. With the GT-R having already had a shakeup this year, the 370Z would be a perfect new offering.

So while the 370Z Roadster will continue being offered in the U.S. and most other markets it's in, it's being nixed in Japan, but we can see this as a good sign that the car will see a new design soon.

I tried hard to buy a 370Z Roadster about 3 years ago. The dealerships did everything they could to make it hard for me. Would not move the only one in stock off the showroom floor so I could test drive it, would not help find my options and color preference, would not even offer coffee while I waited to be helped. I had a perfect 3 year old Miata and cash to spend. Who were they expecting to come look at these cars? I instead came home with a Lexus Convertible. So glad in retrospect that the Nissan dealers helped me do the right thing.