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Nov. 11, 1988. Salaryman X lands at Burbank Airport and strides purposefully up to the Hertz counter. "Here's your keys, Mr. X, the car is in A51." "What is it?" "Uh, looks like...a nice Ford Tempo!" Freeze frame. Now Salaryman X is not a complete idiot. He goes to Hertz in Burbank because they tend to have a lot of Japanocars sneaking in quietly behind the Big Blue Oval. "What else you got? Anything...good?" The last word dripped with an unpleasant mix of irony, hope, and potential gut-wrenching anguish at actually having to drive a f'n Tempo around Tinseltown for the next week. "Well...," she muttered, fishing around in a plastic box full of keys, "There's a Camry (good), a Mustang 5.0 convertible (way good) and...oh...a...Nissan...coupe of some sort. It's in the 'sporty premium' performance car class that will cost $417 a week." Ah. Salaryman X had a secret weapon in this war of keys. Something even better than an unlimited expense account. He was pals with his company's CFO. He also suspected he knew of the vehicle Hertzgirl was referring to. But it couldn't be... "Gimme the keys." Stall F47 held a brand-new rear-drive 1989 Nissan 240SX SE with...get this...a 5-SPEED MANUAL!!! What planet was he on? There were 31 miles on the odometer. Inside was pure automotive aroma therapy. A fat leather wheel, chunky leather shifter. Popup friggin' headlights! "In this exotic, lithe, minimalist machine, I am a god, or at least a demigod. Women will gasp in erotic reflex as I pass. Men will turn impotent, or perhaps gay as they gaze at a manhood so realized, so one with deus-ex-machina they cannot hope to compete for a suitable female on the same Earth!" Flash forward to NOW. Nissan's Autech division announces the Silvia Convertible Varietta will be released domestically July 27th. Uh-oh, jump cut. Disconnect. Bad edit. What's this got to do with...Everything. In 1988 Salaryman X was blissfully tooling off in the so-sweet S13 chassis of the same car. It's a 240SX here, Silvia there. There was the later S14 chassis under a car characterized stateside by fixed headlights, and a floppy suspension targeted at secretaries-dumb ones at that. Finally in 1998 the S14 240SX was kindly put out of its confused misery in the U.S. Like the angry, disillusioned vets of the Vietnam War, it had come to the sorry end of an engagement it was not allowed to win. It had been given an overseas mission without clarity, resolve or a clear mandate from its constituents. Now Nissan is offering the spanky new S15 chassis "over there in droptop form, and it raises some eyebrows, and some issues for its brilliance, and its broad role-playing potential "over here." The car: As you can see, it's a generous, lovely roadster in the Miata vein, without the race-ready starkness of the S2000, the skimpy Porsche-ons of the MRS, or the overdone techno-teeniness of the new Celica. Under the base model's languid hood, the 165 bhp normally-aspirated SR20DE 2.0 (too bad it's not the 250 bhp in the hard coupe SR20DET turbo version). Torque wise its nothing special; 141 Ft-lbs at 4,800 RPM. There's a choice of a 4 speed automatic transmission or for the die-hard a 5 speed manual. It's big enough to be a true 2+2, a characteristic scoffed at by the auto press (look ma, a grocery bag shelf) but beloved in the real world by horny friends forced to cuddle, dogs, relatives, extra luggage, tall furnishings and 4 to 5 kids in soccer shorts. I saw two teenagers in the cramped back of a Mustang ragger just today. They seemed ecstatic without pills. But before we take that critical line of reasoning to climax-a brief pause for this commercial message: The Varietta (Ital. varieta-variation) has got a powered metal top and iridescent butterfly wings for seats!!! No way! Way. First the seats: The world's first application of Morphoton cloth that incorporates Morphotex fiber in the fabric. Sure, and it's got Betallux Metalloy wings that activate when...no, really. Check this out. "This unique cloth adopts the color-producing principle of the iridescent wing scales of Morpho butterflies." Basically, a moth from the Amazon that looks like a living jewel. The laser-like colors produced by light interference modify almost psychedelically according to viewing angle. Don't Bogart that U-joint, my friend! Then the top: Just like the '57 Fairlane 500 Skyliner (and the Merc SLK), it flips its rigid lid. Right into the trunk. Takes about 20 seconds. Wow. You can afford a car that puts you in league with gullwings and Transformers. Now back to our show: Build it (in LHD) and they will come. It sells in Tokyo for about $26k in base form. In a chaotic freeway world of towering SUV's and pickups, America needs a true, affordable sports car bigger than a squashed bug that can hold at least two slightly super-sized Americans. The Miata and Celica, for instance, cannot. If you add in a useful backseat for adult lifeforms and golf bags, bonus points. If you make the safe, quiet hardtop disappear in the time it takes to undo a button fly, triple bonus points. If you sit on hallucinatory butterfly wings, proceed directly to the bonus round and rack it up to the max. The new Z will push $30K and if the marque's traditions continue, will not drop the top. The new Z will have plenty of competition in Audis, Lexi, Beemers, Hondas and even Mitsus. A U.S. spec'd Silvia Varietta (suitably renamed for us gaijin devils, of course) would have no competition. Especially among weary salarymen facing perky Hertzgirls loaded with Escorts. "...we do have a 2002 Nissan Deviant S...E...X, sir." "Gimme the keys!"
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