A warrior approaches. He carries a weapon, a sword, or a six-gun depending on who is doing the telling. The world is changing, his place within it fading. He is aging but still dangerous. The audience can’t help but cheer him on.
The warrior is an archetype: the masterless samurai, the wandering gunslinger. It’s an old story, one that can be traced from ancient myth to Kurosawa’s Yojimbo to Leone’s near-identical A Fistful of Dollars to The Mandalorian. We love a weary anti-hero, even when they’re a car.
The coming 400Z is that last samurai. Much is being made of its old bones and backwards-looking tech. Nissan already made a coupe with rear-wheel drive, a twin-turbo V-6, and an available manual transmission. It was called the 300ZX, and they started selling it in 1989. Three decades later we get a rumored power bump of an extra 100 hp and a touchscreen. That’s progress? For the full story, check out this article from Road & Track.
