Randy Rodriguez, designer of the Nissan 370Z, in an interview with Autoblog:
My very first car was a Datsun Z. My dad had a gas station and got this Z somehow. My older brother begged him for it and got it from him when I was 11. We worked on that when we were kids and then I wanted one badly. I was 14 when I got my car.
[…]
That’s why I decided to work with Nissan: because I have such a strong connection with the Z, and I think that car kind of made me want to be a designer. It’s the first car that I fell in love with, and I think that gave me an advantage when it came to designing the 370 because I knew so much about the car’s history.