how much you make is relative to where you live. a dude making 60k in san diego and a dude making 60k in the middle of kansas are not the same dudes as far as money goes. one guy has to pay half million for the same size house that the kansas guys probably pays 100k for. san diego is one ridiculously expensive town to live in. a half decent area, one bedroom, one bath condo can be rented out for almost 1g/month. now if you made 60k, you'd probably want a little more room than just a room for a ******* and a room for a bed. then again, it's what your priorities are. if it were me, i'd drop 5k on a mountain bike and stick with my POS ranger. i like cars but i love mountain biking more.

 

Definately agree with this.. If we were given a much higher quality interior and maybe a bit more power I'd have no problem in having a higher price base Z.

 

The average salary for a computer guy in my area is about 40-50k, which is about what I make. It probably sounds low to people living in Cali, but you can live pretty good off that around here. I saved up money while I was working and going to school so the Z was my graduation present to myself. I paid right around 35k for my Track model, but if the base model was 35k I probably would have went for a BMW or an Audi. The interior of the Z is nice, and the drivetrain is great for the price. On the other hand, if they added a model above the Track model, especially one with a turbo, I probably would have managed to save up enough to buy that one because I like buying the best model, and I would love to have more power.

 

I'd rather have it in the $35-45K price range if it were a little nicer interior, paint quality, more power, less weight etc... That would make it a more legit "porsche-killer".

Also it would be less common, but I think Nissan did the absolute right thing with this car. They need to sell a lot of cars. Starting at $27K is the best thing to get young peopl into the Z.

 

roberto350z....you got that right. Let's also not forget that the richest human being on the planet is a computer geek!

 

Since I was willing to shell out $54K for an M3, money was not a huge consideration, my wife and I are retired from professional jobs, a University and State Gov't . We are not rich, but the cost of living is very low. Our house in San Jose, Calif. would cost $5-600K! Its the highest cost housing area in the U.S. and OKC Metro is one of the least expensive, a number of retirees are moving here to make their incomes stretch farther.

In spite of our income, I preferred the Z. I had decided, after much soul-searching, to make my next car a 5AT, because I was bored with manuals, good as they may be. The 330Ci had a 5AT, but it was much slower than the Z and it was a sports sedan, not a sports car. Besides we had a 4 door sedan for carrying other people or things and only 2 seats come in handy when you prefer going places with your signicant other only.

We got the Z for $35K almost exactly with tag, tax and license/registration and all options except 6MT, splash guards and NAV. I would pay $35K base price, but it would not be for a classier interior, I like the interior. I know most of it is plastic but I don't care, its tastefully done and better than a vette. If I get tired of the plastic, after market suppliers have leather, carbon fiber, wood veneer, etc. Pooh, Bonz and others, did you know DashKits.com has a dark red carbon fiber kit(Think Brick) for the entire console and the door arms? Its probably over the top but, it made me blink.

In my opinion, the Z is worth $35K base and $40K loaded like the Track or Touring. Its a great car for what we paid for and we can modify, $s willing, most mods we want to do to it. I think its one hell of a bargain at either price. As for the interior, you should examine a stock 1970 240Z with the "quilted plastic" covering the console and the transmission tunnel. Bare bones sports cars have come a long way.

Boomer

 

Having been a software designer/manager for 10 years before going to law school, I know quite a bit about the relative pay scales of these two professions. There is a HUGE disparity in starting salaries for attorneys as compared to software designers. Currently, starting salaries for attorneys average from about $25K to 125K, I know of NO OTHER field that has over a 500% spread in starting salaries. The difference between IT and law, is that in law you can make a very nice salary the day you graduate ($125K is in about the top 1% of salaries) and if you are very successful you can become a millionaire. In IT, the starting salaries are substantially lower (and with a much lower spread between high and low salaries) and most won't become millionaires. But on the other hand, if your goal in life is to become a millionaire many times over, you are more likely to reach that goal in IT by getting a very large stock position in a startup -- attorneys typically aren't offered large stock positions in startups because most startups don't need full time attorneys. Of course, for every startup that makes it, 100 (500? 1000?) go belly up. But if high risk, high reward is your thing, IT is the place to be.

There is a reason Bill Gates a computer guy has made millions of time more money than his dad who is a top lawyer.

 

How many lawyers and computer guys are there out there??? I for one am ALSO a lawyer, so that first comment was absolutely not sarcastic. I've been interested in the demographics of this webgroup ever since I joined a couple of weeks ago. Just wondering who the "typical" Z owner is.

Is it b/c this is just meant to be a fun car? i.e., it can carry nothing in the back? I didn't bother trading in any of my cars to get the Z b/c I just wanted it to be my baby and not doing any real car duties, like grocery shopping. I thought it was totally indulgent and spoiled thing for me to do, but it seems that a significant number of other people have done the same.

 

HMMMM......seems that most people driving Zs are lawyers or in IT!

 

Average salary in CA in 2000: $41,194
Whole country: $35,296

Computer programmers are probably more like 50-60k on average, although they can easily be half or double that depending upon skills.

 

I had no intent to defame with the computer geek comment. It comes naturally because my wife is a programmer analyst. She is the geek (term of endearment) and I'm the evil lawyer.

 

This will be my first new car and I only make around 25k a year. But when you have no one else to take care of, rent is cheap, etc. this happens to be plenty for me to purchase the 350Z and still live.

 

hell, I would pay almost the same amount for a stripped out version (like bmw's m3csl) w/o power windows, ac, leather, heavy interior plastics, etc. That way perhaps we could get the 350z to be a sports car instead of a gt. Call me a purist.

 

If the car was light I would agree

 

Well I just got a raise today (62K!) woo hoo! Which is good because I already put the deposit down in Sept lol in the hopes I;d make enough by then

 

HEY! What the hell wheels are those? You can't just go posting a pic like that and leaving the wheels a mystery!

 

I'm currently looking at the Z as a new "toy" car. Have been driving the same trusty, fun, and economical Probe GT for almost ten years (interestingly, ten years ago, the PGT was winning some of the same automotive accolades as the G35/350Z is currently winning...)

On of the really wonderful things I'm discovering about this car and the design philosophy is the fact that the prices are so very affordable...

 

ha...good eye droid!

 

they're Primax. I didn't get them myself even though I love them -- the dealer had already put them on as an added option. I was originally going to get them taken off the car when we were negotiating the final price, but you know how haggling goes.... I would have put my own rims on eventually anyway, so I figured, why the hell not???

Glad you like 'em....

(just tried to attach another pic but the site told me the image was too big? will try later from work)