Nissan Z Kaze Concept brings back the T-top

Nissan has unveiled the Z Kaze Concept, a one-off take on the current Nissan Z that looks straight back to the golden age of Japanese tuning. Its headline feature is a bespoke T-top roof, joined by performance parts from GReddy, NISMO suspension and styling inspired by nineties import culture. The car was revealed at ZCON 2026 in Phoenix, the annual gathering of the Z Car Club Association. Nissan has not announced any plans to put it into production.

Why the T-top matters

A T-top is not a convertible. The two roof panels above the driver and passenger lift out, while a structural spine runs down the middle, keeping much of the coupé’s rigidity while letting the air in. Kaze is Japanese for “wind”, and that is exactly the idea: the team of designers and product planners at Nissan North America imagined the car for summer drives along the Pacific Coast Highway.

T-tops were a signature of several earlier Z generations and of sports car design in the eighties and nineties. The Kaze revives the formula without copying any single model from the past.

Pacific Teal and carbon fibre

The Pacific Teal paint is a deliberate nod to the modified Japanese sports cars of the nineties, when import culture helped make Nissan and NISMO famous far beyond Japan. The bonnet is vented and made from carbon fibre, as is the bespoke aero kit, while wider wings give the car a more aggressive stance. The proportions remain those of today’s Z, but the car looks lower and wider.

Real NISMO LMGT2 wheels

The most authentic detail sits at each corner. Rather than making replicas, Nissan tracked down an original, long out-of-production set of NISMO LMGT2 wheels and had them restored and rebuilt.

The forged, multi-piece 18-inch wheels are 10 inches wide at the front and 11 inches at the rear, underlining the Z’s rear-wheel-drive layout.

A white cabin made for open-air driving

Inside, Nissan swaps the usual dark trim for white leather seats, which stand out when the roof panels are off and contrast sharply with the teal paint. Carbon-fibre inserts echo the exterior. Bose Personal Plus speakers in the headrests bring the sound closer to the occupants, a practical touch when wind noise rises with the roof removed.

A tuned twin-turbo V6

Power still comes from the Z’s 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6, fitted with selected GReddy parts: a SUPREME SP exhaust, a front-mount air-to-air intercooler and Airinx air filters, improving intake flow, charge-air cooling and exhaust. The suspension has been upgraded with NISMO components. Nissan has not released power, torque or performance figures for the concept.

Nissan Z Kaze Concept: key specifications