Top 10 cars for summer

9. Nissan 370Z Roadster

Courtesy of Nissan USA
For less money than a BMW Z4 or Porsche Boxter, the Nissan 370Z Roadster offers largely the same experience and the peace of mind that comes with Japanese reliability.

Handsome successor to the 350Z, Nissan’s latest 370Z consistently ranks high in the critical dollar-to-fun ratio. With two sporty seats, a performance-oriented interior, and over 300 hp., the 370 ticks all the boxes that sports car enthusiasts love. I find the coupe somewhat sleeker looking, but the $40,500 Roadster is the way to go to maximize the summer sun.

For less money than a comparable BMW Z4 or Porsche Boxter, you get largely the same experience plus the peace of mind that comes with Japanese reliability. And you won’t have to shrink away from stoplight shenanigans against those German drop-tops, either. With over 300 hp. on tap, the Z Roadster can haul to 60 in around five seconds, with the lighter coupe dialing in even faster.

Direct steering feel, great power, and a svelte structure define the Z, and that’s the recipe for a great way to round out your summer commute between barbecues and the beach.

For those who really want to turn up the heat, the performance aftermarket for the Z is massive. But if you’d rather go the other direction and select a “mature” alternative, you may want to look at its upscale cousin: the Infiniti G37.

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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