Nissan 370Z

 

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-neil...,0,944880.story

 

>From the Los Angeles Times

 

With the Nissan 370Z, heel-and-toeing goes the way of the fox trot

 

The latest Z car gives the few remaining practitioners of the downshifting

maneuver nothing to dance to.

By DAN NEIL

 

December 5, 2008

 

The heel-and-toe downshift -- whereby drivers "blip" the gas pedal with the

blade of their right foot, revving the engine, while keeping pressure on the

brake pedal with the ball of the same foot -- is becoming a lost art, a

performance-driving shibboleth known to few and practiced by fewer.

 

This tap dance allows drivers to match the engine's speed, the rpm, with the

rotational speed of the lower gear selected; otherwise, when the clutch is

let out, the engine braking effect causes the car to stumble and slow down.

If a car is already just hanging on, at the limits of tire adhesion, a badly

muffed downshift will take weight off the rear end and cause a spin. As

phenomenally brilliant a driver as I am, even I have experienced this a few

hundred times.

 

Once, all drivers understood heel-and-toe. Manual gearboxes were

"unsynchronized" and so, if you didn't rev-match the gears, you'd grind them

marvelously. You also had to "double clutch," but that's another story.

Heel-and-toe was cultural currency and automotive literacy, the stuff of

plot points on the old radio cop drama "Calling All Cars." It was to driving

what a proper fox trot was to the summer cotillion. Then synchronized manual

transmissions became common and automatic transmissions commoner still.

Today, only about 15% of the license-holding public knows how to drive a

manual-transmission car. I'd estimate that only 1% know their heel from

their toe.

 

Within the last decade or so, ultra-performance street cars with Formula

One-style sequential gearboxes have dispensed with the foot-operated clutch

altogether (Ferrari, I'm looking at you). During downshifts, the car's

computers blip the throttle and electrically actuate the clutch mechanism in

hundredths of a second for perfectly smooth, flawless rev-matching the likes

of which Fangio could only dream of.

 

Then came paddle-shifted automatic transmissions that were nearly as

efficient as sequential boxes but effortlessly smoother. And then

cybernetically controlled dual-clutch gearboxes, such as the ones in the

Bugatti Veyron or the new Porsche 911. Not only did fewer drivers need the

heel-and-toe technique, there were fewer reasons to learn. Heels and toes

were being lost like fingers at an Ozark sawmill.

 

And now it's time to say the final misty and maudlin words over

heel-and-toe. The 2009 Nissan 370Z is the first car to have a computerized

rev-matching system -- called, awfully enough, "SynchroRev Match" -- in a

conventional, H-pattern manual transmission. Gone now is the secret decoder

ring of fast driving, the sacred handshake of the Clutch Brotherhood, the

Esperanto of in-car footwork. Sic transit gloria heel-and-toe.

 

This is the first major overhaul of the Z car since 2003, and Nissan has

moved all the needles in the right directions. The car is shorter (by 4

inches), wider, lower and lighter (by 95 pounds), stiffer and more powerful

(332 horsepower from the 3.7-liter V-6, up 26 hp from the previous car's

3.5-liter). The base price holds steady at about $30,000 while the full glam

of the leather-lined, alloy-wheeled, Bluetoothed Touring package with Sport

options comes in around $36,500.

 

With its cantilevered roof, whiskered catfish mouth, zircon-like headlamps

and roped shoulders, the new Z looks like the old car and the Nissan GT-R

have been slammed together in the Large Hadron Collider.

 

This is a righteous little sport tourer, nicely balanced and tighter than

Rick Wagoner's smile. And yet, in the long telescope of automotive history,

the new Z car would be but a footnote -- a capable and conscientious

updating of a successful car -- but for the rev-matching innovation.

Optional with the Sport package, the feature will, I predict, make its way

to other manual-gearbox cars, in and outside of Nissan's line. In 10 years,

every stick-shift-stirred car will have it. Toes, heels, adieu, adieu.

 

I grudgingly concede, rev-matching works beautifully. You can be full on the

boil in fifth gear coming into a corner, get hard on the big brakes and walk

down the gears -- fourth, third, second -- and before you can release the

clutch, the engine soars with rpm as the computer algorithmically ciphers

the exact revs to match the gear speed. YUNGgggg, YUNGGGG, YUNNGGGGGG!!! . .

. You can't trick it and you can't beat it to the punch. Release the clutch

and the uptake is buttery and slick, a dynamic nonevent.

 

You can switch off the system and practice heel-and-toeing on your own, but

you will find the machine executes downshifts better, and you will be left

inconsolable with your obsolete skill.

 

So what? After all, I don't know how to change a tubed tire. And I couldn't

get a Model T out of neutral if you held a tommy gun to my head. Techniques

change with technology.

 

It's just that heel-and-toeing makes drivers an integral, biomechanical part

of the drivetrain, adjudicating between the engine and the rear wheels. You

feel and appreciate the machinery. You vibe to the buzzy pulse of the engine

through the blade of your foot and the shifter in your right palm. As a

matter of driver involvement, heel-and-toeing is a hedge against boredom,

and boredom is forever the enemy in sports cars, followed closely by

inattention.

 

So what if I can wear my big, heavy Allen Edmonds shoes instead of my Piloti

driving slippers? I like my driving shoes. So rev-matching is faster and

more efficient. So is euthanasia.

 

Another sodden blanket of technology has been thrown between me and the

road. Another window opened to the klutzy, unweaned poseurs. More enabling

of the inept. Progress.

 

Bah. I wash my heels and toes of the whole thing.

 

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As someone who heels and toes as part of my normal daily driving routine, I really appreciated that article, although it was a bit over dramatic.

 

 

As someone who heels and toes as part of my normal daily driving routine, I really appreciated that article, although it was a bit over dramatic.

 

 

I would love to give it a try. I remember reading about it in Top Gear and thought I must be "misremembering"!!!

Good read, thanks!

 

But why does Nissan have to make the face lift so ugly!!! The car now looks stubby and the new front makes it look like it has lower fangs.

Good read, thanks!

 

But why does Nissan have to make the face lift so ugly!!! The car now looks stubby and the new front makes it look like it has lower fangs.

Totally agree! Especially the new headlight.

As someone who heels and toes as part of my normal daily driving routine, I really appreciated that article, although it was a bit over dramatic.