People like vanilla. It's pleasant, it's agreeable, and you don't need Baskin-Robbins to tell you it's popular. Companies sometimes take this fact and bet the farm on it. Everyone likes plain four-door sedans, right? Nissan thought so, and at one point promptly threw out the 300ZX, 240SX, and 200SX coupes like Wednesday's trash, leaving a car lineup of three indistinguishable cruise-and-snooze sedans with all the flavor of... vanilla. The sugar-free kind.The public began to ask "What happened to the fun-loving company we used to call Datsun?" and "Where's the Z-car?", then yawned and walked away. Nissan broke, and automaker Renault swooped down to pick up the pieces.As we now know, this was a good thing. The plant closings and platform consolidations helped, but the most drastic reform since the takeover has been Nissan's renewed willingness to take chances. The most significant was a dedicated conversion back to the company's performance roots - a drastic reform spearheaded by the resurrection of its pride and joy, the Z sports car. The project was seen through to the end, and the Z is back.