Nissan Z vs Subaru BRZ

What's the difference?

The Nissan Z is a real blueblood.

With Datsun, Nissan introduced the world to Japanese cars via a gruelling round-Australia rally in 1958 that had the country captivated. Within 10 years the 1600 made them respectable, but it was the 240Z of 1970 that also made them desirable.

Seven generations later, today’s RZ34-series Z – along with the Toyota/Subaru GR86/BRZ and Mazda MX-5 – embodies that nation’s tradition of affordable yet charismatic sports cars.

They’ve always been ripe for modifying as well, with Nissan leaning on its performance arm Nismo for 40 years. Which is exactly what the Z Nismo is all about, stepping up to take on the Toyota GR Supra, BMW M240i and Ford Mustang GT.

The old 370Z Nismo was a true corker. Let’s find out if this one does the family proud.

Subaru struck gold when it first launched the BRZ in 2011.

It, alongside the related Toyota 86 (now GR86), has been the standard for budget two-door sports cars for 15 years now. Nothing besides the MX-5 convertible is in the same class.

However, buyer’s preferences have changed dramatically over the years and sports cars are at risk of becoming more mundane and vanilla to please the general public. It’s great that Subaru continues to offer the BRZ, importantly with the availability of a manual gearbox. Hallelujah.

Last year Subaru made some slight tweaks to the BRZ, including adding active safety tech and a ‘Sport’ mode to the manual trims, plus a full-size spare wheel on the top-spec tS grade.

Speaking of, we’ve got the BRZ tS manual on test here, so let’s see how it fares in 2026.