Nissan’s current CEO, Makoto Uchida, hasn’t even left his office chair yet (until next Tuesday, April 1), and already, the next CEO-in-waiting Ivan Espinosa has announced plans to bring Nissan back to its former glory – starting with the return of the GT-R and Z cars.
When asked by Autocar UK about the importance of performance models in the marque’s line-up, Espinosa said, “Driving excitement will always be at the heart of Nissan. This is what we do.”
“There are many, many ways of explaining and showing to the world what this means, starting from the Z, which is affordable and fun to drive, to the GT-R, or even the Patrol [SUV],” adds Espinosa.
“These will remain, for sure. I want to have four or five cars at the top of our portfolio that are really brand-oriented, cars that really represent what Nissan is about and show what the heartbeat of Nissan is. And these cars should go everywhere in the world.”
This wouldn’t be the first time that we’ve heard hints of the GT-R’s revival. Earlier this month when Nissan announced that they are halting orders for the R35 GT-R in Japan, the brand said that there are ‘seeds of new developments’ for the model, hinting at the fact that they won’t be killing off their halo car just yet.
Japan is the latest country to kill off the “supercar killer”, after the United States, Europe, and Australia, due to a variety of reasons such as not meeting with safety and emissions regulations.
What elevated the R35 GT-R to the legendary status to this very day is credited to its powerplant. The handcrafted VR38DETT 3.8-litre twin-turbocharged V6 engine puts down 485 hp and 588 Nm of torque straight into the asphalt, and is paired together with a six-speed dual-clutch transmission and all-wheel drive (AWD) configuration.
There was also an ultra-limited run of the GT-R50 prototype created in collaboration with Italdesign in 2018, which helped push the performance numbers of the venerable V6 engine to a whopping 720 hp and 780 Nm of torque with GT3-spec upgrades.
READ: Nissan GT-R50 by Italdesign confirmed for production, 50 units only
We even saw what might be the next evolution of the GT-R name in the Hyper Force concept during the Japan Mobility Show 2023. Despite its Cyberpunk-inspired exterior panels, shades of the R35 GT-R’s shape and form can be seen from every angle.
Nissan has previously confirmed that they are developing sports cars with hybrid and EV powertrains, but never explicitly saying that if those sports cars would be a GT-R. With the incoming Nissan boss being a car guy himself, we could finally see that vision finally become a reality. For now, let’s just wait for Godzilla to come out of hibernation.
READ: Nissan confirms development of hybrid and EV sports car, possibly as GT-R successor
