Unfortunately I'm old enough to remember when the Datsun 240Z first came out.

I saw a bright orange Z pull up to my high school in late 1969 or 1970, and as it sped off down the drive, I can remember the consternation with which I and my friends viewed the car. After all, weren't Datsuns those little square boxes you saw every now and then stepping lightly through traffic lest they be crushed by the American juggernauts surrounding them?

The 240Z quickly earned unusual standing and a grudging respect from car enthusiasts of the period. While it could not hope to keep up to the brawny American muscle cars, many were attracted to its slinky styling and ability to handle fairly well -- unlike American cars that could blister pavement in a straight line but wallowed like a top-heavy barge when attempting anything left or right of centre.

I might suggest (although this is purely hypothetical) that the 240Z might have attracted drivers who were turned off by the problems of British sports cars of the day. By 1970, the E-Type Jaguars had become parodies of their earlier models with a poor 12-cylinder motor, problematic electrics, tinsel-like chrome embellishments obscuring the original lines and an overblown price tag. The 240Z seemed more of a purist's car.

Unfortunately, the 240Z seemed to suffer the same fate as the E-Type Jaguars and not only lost performance when it was replaced by the 260Z, but also started to grow, becoming a 2 plus 2.

While new emissions and mileage requirements mandated the loss of performance, the sports car seems to have become lost to a corporate desire to place more units in suburbia than on the track. The slide progressed with the 280Z and ZX, which had too many luxury-car features to be classed as an enthusiast's sports car. This line culminated with the redesigned 300ZX, a car that started out with fairly strong sales, but sagged markedly over its five-year life span. Again, it was more a suburban cream puff than a true sports car.

Nissan took another very healthy kick at the can with its introduction of an all-new 300ZX in 1990.

I have to admit it was the very first Z car to get my attention since I dismissed the 260Z from my list of "likes" many years before. I felt considerable lust for this new car and visited a dealership to take a good long look at a yellow one they had parked outside.

Judging by how rare they were on the roads, I think that while the new 300ZX had regained sports car credibility, it suffered from the early nineties lethargy that suppressed sales on most high-powered sports cars like it and the Toyota Twin Turbo Supra.

By 1996, the 300ZX was dated and unable to meet new regulations without far too much redesign to make it compliant. Unwilling to invest in a car that had fairly insignificant sales, the 300ZX was dropped and Nissan's sports car disappeared.

That Nissan still regretted its loss was emphasized a few years ago by an ill-conceived project where the company commissioned a series of restoration shops to restore 240Zs that would then be offered at Nissan dealerships. The restoration costs were so high, Nissan lost huge sums to make the cars saleable (a result any reputable shop should have explained to them at length).

Then, like a bolt from the blue, Nissan introduced its new Z car prototype in 2001. A car that deservedly went into full production in 2003, first as a coupe and then as a convertible. I have recently spent a week with the 2004 Nissan 350Z convertible and have to say that I was impressed. Not quite as impressed as my wife, Janice, however, who fell in love and is ordering one this fall, likely with the optional track package to replace her twin turbo Dodge Stealth.

I found the 350Z handled quite well, was fairly quick and enjoyable. My overall impression of hard cornering was that the car was quite adept and very forgiving, but with a feeling of softness as if you are a little bit disconnected from the process. If it seems I am damning with faint praise, you have to remember that my daily drives are a Dodge Viper GTS and a Lotus Esprit Turbo.

I have only a couple of misgivings on an otherwise superb car. My test car was an automatic so the speedometer should have been in the centre of the cluster, not to the side; the tachometer isn't that relevant. The door panels are a shade austere and would have benefited from a nice embossed or aluminum Z on them and, finally, why couldn't it have been called a 340Z instead of a 350Z?

I ask this because this is the first Z car from Nissan that can seriously be considered the true heir to a throne long abandoned by the 240Z.

David Grainger owns an

automotive restoration company