ANXIOUZ

iTrader: (13)

Sorry, it's just not a rare car. Step outside and you'll see one drive by within a few minutes.

As a comparison, there were only something like 5,000 EVO MR's produced in 03. The 06 MY only saw 1,500. Add up all the years and you have maybe 10k MR's...compared to 120k Z's.

cavallino33

Thats what I was trying to say by todays standards of rairty its mildly rare, I mean its no high priced exotic but its still pretty rare for a car that onyl costs around 30K and is sold through any Nissan dealer. I mean even Ferrari makes about 5 thousands cars a year now a days.

Gooey

iTrader: (18)

100k z's on the road is not that rare. you have to consider how many different models of cars there are and break that down and compare the Z with other cars too. Now if all those 60million or whatever # of cars you state were the same identical cars and out of that, the 100k Z's were in the states. Then we can consider it somewhat rare.

DavesZ#3

iTrader: (26)

Rare? No. Common? No. I might see one or two other Zs on any given day. Look at the number of Accords, Taurus' or Camrys out there by comparison.

It's probably not fair to compare EVO's to Zs. Compare it to the number of Track Zs or 35th Anniv Zs. The EVO is a special version of the econobox Lancer, I'm sure if you look at the total number of Lancer/Evos it's more on the same level as the Z (30K/year).

Look at the numbers I posted from the previous gen Zs, there where some years they sold 80K 280ZXs. And that was 20 years ago when the overall car market was much smaller than it is today. So relatively speaking, the 350s ought to be more rare in the future than the older ones are now.

dutchboy350Z

iTrader: (5)

Corvettes have been the best selling sports car for a while. Everytime I see one I don't think "goodness yet another vette, can't these guys be original", I think "nice vette ".

Blue Highways

I'm gonna defend the Z's rarity.
I've had mine since April of '03,and I recall a time,way back when,when I may have been the only Z in 100 square miles,maybe the entire County.In it's younger days,I drove the Z through entire STATES that had never seen them.Earlier on,the Z was genuinely a rare car.
While they do appear in traffic from time to time,I think our car is still a really uncommon car and I'm pleased that I own something that very few people will ever have the opportunity to park in their garage.

All my car driving life I have had cars that no one else has.I could never settle for the common Ford or Toyota--it was always the RARE one that attracted my attention and earned my money.Sure,I had a number of ordinary rides (Firebirds and Galaxies and Tercels),but a huge percentage of the stuff I've called my own were cars you just never saw,no matter how hard you watched.

For instance,my first car,at age 16,was a Packard hearse.NOBODY drove Packard hearses,this I know.After I sank the hearse,car #2 was a Triumph TR3,then a Healey 3000,then a Morris Minor (a Winter car).Though I lived in a big city then (Rochester,NY) it was a rarity to find cars like mine in the daily stream of commuters.I would never see myself pass in traffic.I kind of liked that--it made me feel that owning my various British POSs put me in an exclusive club,something the everyday Chevy driver could only aspire to.

I had a '67 E-Type Jaguar while living in Dallas.Even though Big D is a hell of a Car Town,I hardly ever saw E-Types running around the streets.Later,I had an Alfa-Romeo Gulia.Anybody know what those were???
Well,back then,when the car was nearly new,no one knew anything about them,either.I think I may have seen five Gulias during the time I owned the car,and they were mostly in the repair bay next to mine.

My first Florida car was a 1963 Hemi Chrysler 300-J.I bought in in '72,when I first moved here.650 were ever made.Auction prices for this particular model are currently in the $40,000 range,if one ever comes up for sale,that is.I bought it for $600,later gave it away.I've never seen another one,except in pictures.

I earned my Z-bones early,when Nissan was Datsun.My first Jap car was a new,1974 Datsun 610 coupe,and I'll bet nobody on this board gets a mental flash of THAT car,even though it's in the Z's prehistoric family lineage.
Go ahead,look it up.
It was a cool little car,a zippy Sun Yellow hardtop built atop the fabled 510's bones.It had a 2-litre 120 HP 4-banger,4 speeds and full disc brakes,IRS and A/C.Cornered like a BMW.Everybody who ever saw the car would say "What the hell is THAT???",even the car nuts.Nobody else ever bought one in SW Florida,as far as I know.

Recently,besides the previous,not-so-rare Zs I've had (I did have a couple 2+2's,which were sort of out there) there was a '79 El Dorado,a '94 Supra (ever see Supras??) and my Spare Car,currently parked to the left of the Z,is a 1987 200 SX SE V6,basically a rebodied Z.
Less than 8,000 made in a 2-year run.I've owned it since 1990 and 14,000 miles.It now has 220,000 on it.I've seen maybe ten of them since '90 (the V6 model,that is).

All these electrons I've been wasting bring me back to the opening paragraph.
Although I'll admit that I DO see more Zs on the road these days,they are still a rarity to behold.In the bigger cities (Orlando,Tampa,Jax) they are beginning to seem somewhat common,at least more common than last year,but most everyplace I roam,I'm probably the only Z in ten square miles.

I run up and down a 350-mile stretch of I-75 a lot,and I see very few in the clogged lanes that pass for our freeway nowadays.During a 700-mile trip,maybe five Zs.In three trips to New York City,I NEVER see Zs there,nor does DC have many,and in my little town,as far as I know,there are only 2 or 3 other LeMans Zs,and one's a roadster.

That's rare,at least as rare as Packard hearses.

cavallino33

It depends alot on location I suppose. They seem to be "clustered" in some areas. Around here (in campbell) I see maybe 2-3 a week at the most.

DavesZ#3

iTrader: (26)

Blue Highways, I agree with you totally. One thing I have learned here over the last 3+ years is that the density of Z's in any particular area varies widely. When Zs first came out, dealers around here had 2 or 3 cars on the lot at any time. Even now it's never more than 4 or 5. I might see another Z on the road going to or from work but some days I don't see any.

Contrast that with Southern California. I've read posts here of dealers have 20 to 30 Zs on the lot all the time. Guys talk about seeing dozens a day there. It just depends on where you are.

We drove from Baton Rouge to Dallas back in May for the 2006 Z Convention. I don't recall seeing one other Z on the interstate highways until we were actually in Dallas. I had the same or similar experiences on previous long road trips. Certainly in the South Central and South East they are not that common and probably could be considered a rarity.

A side note - I drive past a Mazda dealer every day on the way to work. When the RX8s came out, it was a totally different story from what I saw with the Zs. Instead of 2 or 3 RX8s on the lot this dealer had probably 20 to 30. He probably would have done better to only have 2 or 3 because it seems as though most of them sat there for a long long time. I doubt they were as popular as Mazda though they were going to be. Even now, I probably see as many RX8s on the road as Zs. I also see only 1 or 2 RX8s on his lot these days.

Blue Highways

Yes,but even in the larger cities where the Z clusters reside,they are still ONLY a small part of the 25,000 that are imported here each year.

My local,hayseed dealer might have 3-4 Zs on his lot,but one I stopped at in Orlando had a dozen,and a lot I saw in Miami had maybe 20.It looked like a Z-only franchise,and I subsequently noticed that there were a lot of 350s running around Miami.

Still,they are only a small piece of a nationwide sales effort,pushing a car which is available in finite annual numbers.

Mid117

iTrader: (11)

Hey Cavallino, welcome to the my350z! I used to post over on clubwrx but then I got the Z. Enjoy your stay

cavallino33

Oh yeah I remeber you. Looks like we both have good taste in cars.

taurran

iTrader: (18)

Tampa, and Florida in general, is a hotspot for 350z's. I see them about every 5 minutes on the streets. The other day I pulled up at a stoplight right next to another red coupe, and the blonde chick inside didn't even look over or seem to take notice. Also, it seems like every roadster in town is driven by a 50-something woman who only bought the car cause it was "cuter" than the ragtop vw bug.

cman321

The Z is one of the most common sports cars around. Sports cars by defination are highly impracticle cars that will generally have only a fraction of the sales of sedans/trucks. Especially 2 seat sports cars. And if you factor in its 4 seat twin G35, than you are talking even more common.

True sports cars the vette sells the most, followed by the Z.

4 seat sporty cars like the mustang can sell in big numbers.

Look at other sporty cars and they sell less than the Z (rx8, gto, crossfire, civic si and rsx type S, miata, s2000, etc).

Z sells well for good reason.....price, looks, performance for $.

DavesZ#3

iTrader: (26)

While I don't consider the Rustang to be a sports car (a muscle car IMO), when you consider that Ford expected to sell over 200,000 the first year, that dwarfs the 30,000 Z's sold per year. IIRC, the Corvette sells around 100,000 per year, so relatively speaking the Z is not that popular or common.

JonsilvZ

The article in Motor Trend says over 30k Vette C6s were sold in 05. So the premium sports car Vette are popular like the Zs.

DJ350z

Is there any way to find production numbers of certain models,colors,etc im sure there is a breakdown of info somewhere