My mother has been wanting to buy a sports car for quite some time now. Honestly I can say that a sports car will be truly wasted on this woman--she knows nothing about cars, does not particularly enjoy driving, and is not at all concerned with how well a vehicle handles under "spirited" driving conditions. She wants a sports car simply because her upbringing and the media to which she is constantly exposed tells her that owning a racy little automobile will make her younger.

She isn't concerned with performance or handling, she is choosing the car almost entirely based on its looks. She had initially wanted a car with all-wheel drive to combat the winters which make New England such a wonderful place to be in the colder months, but if she's going to drop that much money on a car, I'm not going to let her take it out of the garage in the winter.

That said, she likes the "look" of the new Nissan Z car. She wants something with a little more heft than a roadster would offer, and she likes the sporty look that the new Nissan has. Can anyone here tell me anything about these cars that I don't already know? I've been trying to find the ground clearance (we live at the end of a road which gets severly frost-heaved at the end of every winter and there is a dirt section which occasionally washes out a bit) but to no avail..

Any help is appreciated

-Adam