It’s been a tough quarter for Nissan this year with the Honda merger deal falling through, but today’s a particularly tough day for enthusiasts as Nissan has essentially discontinued the R35 GT-R in Japan after 18 years of service. The Japanese marque has effectively halted taking new orders for the beloved “supercar killer”, and will fulfil its current production quantity before finally putting Godzilla to rest.
“We have received many orders for the Nissan GT-R, and we have now finished accepting orders for the planned production quantity. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to our many customers for their patronage over the years since its release in 2007,” Nissan said in their statement.
Japan is currently the latest country to halt production of the R35 GT-R. The supercar killer was discontinued in the United States last year, with the swansong T-Spec Takumi and Skyline editions marking its exit in the US market.
The discontinuation of R35 GT-R sales is a global phenomenon. In 2021, Australia and New Zealand discontinued sales of the model, citing regulatory compliance issues for crash safety. A year later, Europe and the United Kingdom ceased deliveries of the R35 GT-R for not meeting with emissions regulations.
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Released to the world in 2007 under the Nissan Revival Plan by then-CEO Carlos Ghosn, the R35 GT-R was a force of nature right off the bat. Powered by the venerable VR38DETT 3.8-litre twin-turbocharged V6 engine with 485 hp and 588 Nm of torque, six-speed dual-clutch transmission and all-wheel drive (AWD), it had its crosshairs set on supercars that are multiple weight classes above it.
To celebrate 50 years of the R35 GT-R’s heritage and Skyline legacy, Nissan and Italdesign in 2018 also produced a GT-R50 prototype. The prototype was created ‘without any restrictions’, using the R35’s same six-cylinder power unit to squeeze out 720 hp and 780 Nm of torque with GT3-spec upgrades.
Despite getting an ultra-limited 50-unit production run, the GT-R50 probably isn’t the definitive future of the GT-R nameplate. Nissan execs had previously confirmed a few years ago that they are developing hybrid and EV sports cars, but they never explicitly said if it will be a GT-R successor.
READ HERE: Nissan GT-R50 by Italdesign prototype may just be the ultimate GT-R
The last time we saw and heard of this EV sports car would be the Hyper Force concept during the Japan Mobility Show 2023, which bears a strong resemblance to the R35 GT-R’s silhouette – but we still don’t know if it’ll carry the GT-R nameplate when it does eventually make it to production.
That said, Nissan said in their website that the swansong generation of the R35 GT-R has shown ‘seeds of new developments’, teasing that the ‘evolution of the GT-R will never end’. This might mean that the GT-R name will live on – but with Nissan’s current state of affairs at this point in time, we can only sit back and see what happens next.
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