In the 60s, Japanese car companies made boxy little motors with funny names that had cigar-chomping bosses of British car firms laughing their bowler hats off.
Who'd want to buy a reliable, efficient 1969 Japanese saloon over a Morris Minor that was designed in 1949?
Then, in 1970, Datsun unleashed a car called the 240Z - a proper sports car.
It looked so good that, decades later, old ones were used as the basis for Ferrari 250 GTO replicas.
But still the old fools laughed... until the 240Z became a worldwide hit and outsold cars like the MGB.
The 240Z turned into the 260Z, which was a 2+2, gained a bit of weight in the 80s and became the 300Z.
In the 90s, Nissan (the Datsun name was long gone) added a lot of horsepower and a couple of turbochargers and it became the 300ZX Turbo.
Then Nissan stopped making it and the world was Z-less until 2003, when it launched the 350Z.
Now you know the history of Nissan's sports car and I've proved I'm a proper car anorak and proud of it.
History might be repeating itself because here we have the 370Z
(though like the 350 it's only a two-seater).
What the £26,690 370Z gives you is a very broad grin. I would say the grin that developed while larking around in the Nissan was perhaps a few millimetres wider than the one measured in last week's £99k Audi R8 V10.
The Z's a bit like an oriental Ford Mustang. It's a little crude, blunt instrument - and extremely easy to enjoy.
You'd expect transforming the 350Z into the 370Z would mean drilling larger holes in the engine and bumping it up to 3700cc.
But Nissan has also made it shorter by 65mm and its wheelbase is 100mm less.
It should make the 370Z more agile but I'd be surprised if you noticed it on the road. You will notice the performance.
The extra 200cc has lifted power from 309bhp to 326bhp. It'll do 0-62mph in 5sec and has a top speed of 155mph.
By modern standards that's not amazingly fast but it's still swift for a car under £30k.
The V6 starts with the press of a button and ticks over with a nice burble.
The engine, though it likes to rev to 7,000rpm to produce full power, is a bit lazy. Prod the throttle and it slowly revs as the sound gets fruity.
You can buy an automatic Z but the standard six-speed manual is right and proper for this car.
It also comes with a new bit of tech: it can do the heel and toeing for you.
If you think that's something to do with ballroom dancing, I'll explain... If, when on a track, you come to a sharp corner after a long straight and change from sixth to first,
the engine screams and the rear is unbalanced as you turn in, which might put you
into a spin.
To avoid this, racing drivers blip the throttle with their heel and press the brake at the same time. This smooths the gear change and doesn't unbalance the car (best practised off the public road - if you get it wrong you might go through a shop window.) Press a button and the 370Z blips the throttle for you.
All semi-automatic gearboxes do it but the 370Z is the first with a traditional box to do it.
Just like the 350Z and the old 240Z, the 370Z is a simple sports car that gives almost all the thrills of cars costing four times as much.
It's an old-fashioned hairy-chested sports car for people who don't necessarily have hair on their chests.
Like my wife Mindy, who has a soft spot for it.
THE FACTS
Nissan 370Z
Price: £26,690
Engine: 3696cc, V6, 326bhp
0-62mph: 5.0sec
Fuel consumption: 26.9mpg
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