[exitspeed]

Sneak Peek: Nissan Exposes Future Z Car

Date posted: 04-29-2008

CASCAIS, Portugal — Taking a page from Mazda R&D, Nissan's top designer hung a "sculpture" today on the wall of a meeting room at the company's Nissan 360 global product review: a sculpture that hints at the design of the next-generation Nissan Z.

When Mazda did it in the 1980s at its North American design studio in Irvine, the joke was that the sculpture was really a life-size copy of the hood and driver-side fender of a top-secret car sports car that everyone was speculating about.

The Mazda Miata was finally put into production almost two years after designer Tom Matano and his team hung their "sculpture," and he laughed for years as he gleefully recounted how hundreds of vendors and automotive journalists had visited the R&D facility without ever noticing that the secret roadster they were obsessing over had been hanging there in plain sight all that time.

Nissan Design Chief Shiro Nakamura wasn't as secretive as Matano — he blatantly pointed out his wall hanging to a group of 80 North American automotive journalists gathered in the hotel meeting room in this costal resort town about 17 miles west of Lisbon.

It represented, he said, a new Nissan that people would be seeing more of in the fall.

With that clue as a starter, the wall most of us had ignored during an hour-long reception before Nakamura gave his pre-dinner speech took on new dimensions — three dimensions, to be exact.

Despite the opaque fabric covering that blurred and softened the shape, it quickly became apparent that the car he was hinting at was, in all likelihood, the new Z due next year.

Nakamura also showed off a crimson red design study that he said contained elements of future design treatments for Nissan's upscale Infiniti division.