2027 Nissan Z Nismo in the Metal: Nissan’s Manual Sports Car Looks Epic

The 2026 New York International Auto Show is in full swing, and Nissan brought its recently revealed 2027 Z Nismo to the event, allowing us to get up close and personal with one of the last remaining manual sports car offerings on the market. Nissan is particularly proud of that six-speed fact, putting an H-pattern decal on the door of a red Z Nismo that was placed above its stand. Personally, I quite like the red paint on this model, as the red accents of a Nismo variant can be a bit garish and vulgar when they’re placed on a contrasting-color car. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below. In the meantime, let’s recap the Z Nismo and take a closer look at its bodywork and interior.

2027 Nissan Z Nismo Looks Even More Aggressive in the Metal

While we don’t have anything bad to say about the official photography supplied with the Z Nismo’s press release, it just looks so much bolder and more exciting in person. This is especially true at the front, where the chin spoiler looks much deeper and more aggressively slanted. It’s also true of the doors and rocker panels, which seem to taper in a more obvious way. The rear is quite bulky, but a mass of gloss black paint helps to hide its size. As we noted above, the red accents on the gray model in these images are far less subtle, but to be fair, if you’re buying the most hardcore version of a sports car, you may as well lean into it and make sure everyone around you knows you take performance seriously. Speaking of performance…

2027 Nissan Z Nismo Gets GT-R Brakes and More

One of the biggest changes to the 2027 Z Nismo is that the sports car now features two-piece iron-aluminum brake rotors, using learnings gained with the Nissan GT-R. These will be better at shedding heat and will improve the car’s unsprung mass, saving a total of 19 pounds. Nissan retuned the suspension to account for this lower corner mass, and the steering rack was also fiddled with for sharper responses.

The other big change for 2027 is the addition of a six-speed manual transmission, and the gear lever is fairly tall, allowing a driver’s hand to fall from the sueded steering wheel to the ball shifter more easily. A long accelerator pedal should make heel-and-toe downshifts easy, too, while the supportive red-accented Recaro seats add a little more GT-R flavor and combine with red contrast stitching nicely. Also red is the D-Mode switch ahead of the shifter, making it a cinch to switch between drive modes. It’s a nice place to sit, and we hope to see buyers take to the track regularly.

2027 Nissan Z Nismo: Take a Peek Underneath

You almost never want to see the undercarriage of your car. If you do, it either means something is wrong and it’s on a lift to be fixed, or you’ve had a crash and the rubber bits are facing the sky. Or maybe you’re just performing an oil change. Regardless, it’s a perspective not many usually see, so we snapped some pics. Of course, we’d have preferred it if Nissan had displayed the regular 2027 Z in its new Shinkai Green Pearl paint, but beggars can’t be choosers, so take a closer look at the dual exhaust system that lets the Z Nismo’s 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 produce its 420-horsepower/384-lb-ft output.

Pricing for the new Z Nismo is yet to be announced, and the manual option will be scarce (which means expensive), but the rear-wheel-drive sports car will arrive at dealers this summer.