My kid's crappy little Sentra has a "Sport" button (sic) which changes the behavior of the CVT. It reverts back to normal every time I shut it down.

Man I hate that car. The second starter crapped out on her today, and we had to have it towed to the shop. Never buy a Sentra.

/rant

 

Pretty sure none of us have a Sentra on the list of worthy replacements

That said, the mid 90s era SE-Rs with the 7500 rpm 2.0 was a sweet little car.

 

The new Sentra finally looks sporty again and they claim it has 20% more power, but it is still a pooch. It does have independent rear suspension for the first time in a very long time, if not ever so it has potential. Here is to hoping the Rogue sells like crazy so Nissan has the capital to make a true Nismo version of this car. Last year's "Nismo" Sentra was a joke.

Rochester, you are right about the last two generations of the Sentra being pretty dull. Basically a rental car that sold in large volumes. I am surprised to hear about yours needing 2 starters. Usually those things are pretty bulletproof. My dad had a '92 that had well over 200,000 miles on it when he sold it and his co-worker who bought it hit 320,000+ the last I heard.

 

Well, we'll see what the shop says. I had them put in a re-man starter in August 2019, and I bought a brand new battery in April 2020. It can only be one of those two things, so...

I agree the new Sentra has some style. And I had no idea it finally got an independent rear suspension. That's great info, thanks.

You know, I'm not too proud to admit I liked the old Infiniti G20. With the side skirts, that little sedan looked alright. And long ago I once had a girlfriend with a brand new 1992 Sentra that felt like a solid little toaster.

 

LOL - in high school (in some other century) I dated a girl with a 240SX she and her dad had worked over. Probably the start of my shift from American muscle cars to foreign sporty cars - that little thing could handle very well, and drift, long before Americans knew what dorifto was. I think her dad had been stationed in Okinawa so he might have known about the drift scene there.

 

That's a bummer about your starter. Maybe you got a slightly defective remanufactured part? The G20 did a better job of transforming the Sentra than the Cimarron did of transforming the Cavalier in the 80's, but Cadillac did set the bar remarkably low.

The rounded styling of those 90's Nissans (SE-R, 240SX, 300Z, and to some degree even the Maxima) was really good and sporty and still looks decent to me today. When I look at the current styling of the Altima, Sentra, and even a bit of the new Versa, they actually look sporty again, but in a different way. The blacked out tail lights remind me a little bit of those 90's cars. Here is to hoping Nissan gets the turn around it needs and it can actually produce some really good driver's cars like it did in the 90's (see my short list above).

 

I've seriously thought about trying to find a nice physical condition 300ZX turbo as a project car. I blame Z1's instagram, honestly. But apparently they're hens' teeth too.

That would be a neat car with a VK56 in it.

//who am I kidding? If I buy a nissan V8 motor it's going in the G.

 

FWIW, it was the 7 month old battery from Walmart that was the culprit. Lessons learned here. Should have bought Interstate. Sorry for the OT rant. Carry on.

 

That will definitely be a project car. I love the look of that car, but it is such a pain to work on.

Sounds legit

 

Why? I've never really had experience with one aside from test driving one when they first came out.

 

The engineering is pretty complicated under the hood and really crammed inside. Talk to the guys at Z1 Motorsports. They specialize in the 300ZX, but always seem to warn people that they can be a bit of a headache to work on.

 

The tight packaging of the TT v6 requires engine out for a lot of maintenance & upgrades. Nevertheless, a timeless design rad car to own.

 

I wonder if it's like the FD (3rd gen RX7) where for a lot of things, you unbolt the front subframe and lift up the rest of the car off the motor.

 

I've been in love with the 300Z since the first time I saw one at the dealership back in the late 80's. To this day, they still turn my head, and I linger over the design.

That car, and the same-year model Supra... absolutely timeless lines. They had the stuff you could day-dream about all day long.

Going forward, I don't want a 30+ year old car. I suspect few of us do. But in the context of Id, Ego and Superego... the Id says, "OMG yes!"

 

A Supra Turbo trouncing my Z28 in 1990 or so was what piqued my interest in Japanese cars. The slightly later girlfriend with 240SX completed my conversion. While I might be tempted into a German car, I doubt I'll even buy American again unless I need a truck.

Rochester - I wasn't really following this thread's intent - I was talking about picking up a project car, not rehabbing a 30+ year old car as a daily. Then again - my next daily might be white-bread-boring for a lot of reasons, so the project car *could* be the replacement for the G.