If I had a penny for every R36 report and rumor I’ve read in the past decade, I would be driving a fully-loaded R35 nowadays. But as you already know, the Japanese coupe is nowhere to be seen.
Some people, including Fast & Furious technical advisor Craig Lieberman, argue that the Japanese automaker has given up on the R36, although there’s no hard evidence in this regard. Himself the owner of a beautiful R35 with tasteful mods, Craig understands from his unnamed sources that Nissan is too financially strained at the present moment to develop an all-new GT-R.
The situation is explained in two ways, starting with the Carlos Ghosn debacle that caused more harm than good within the Renault Nissan Alliance. We also have to remember the Japanese automaker’s worrisome financial results for the 2020/21 fiscal year, which revealed an operating loss of 150.7 billion yen, a net loss of 448.7 billion yen, and a free cash flow of negative 391 billion.
In the summer of 2018, Craig Lieberman was invited to a GT-R focus group to ask GT-R owners what they would like to see on the R36. The focus group had really strong opinions, but everyone agreed that full electrification would ruin the car’s appeal. Some argued in favor of KERS technology, the kinetic energy recovery system that F1 adopted in 2009 to boost performance and efficiency. Others preferred e-motors driving the front wheels, a solution that would be hard to implement because of the tight packaging.
Previously rumored to debut in 2023 with KERS assistance, the R36 hasn’t been spied once by the carparazzi, and Nissan isn’t willing to detail the newcomer either. Another point of contention is the NEXT: From A to Z promo video that features the all-new Z sports car and no GT-R whatsoever.
Under the NEXT business transformation plan, however, the Yokohama-based manufacturer expects to recover and improve in every respect, thereby paving the way to achieve a 5-percent operating margin by the end of the 2023 fiscal year. This outlook, therefore, is rosy enough for the R36 Nissan GT-R to come to fruition at some point in the not-so-distant future.
The latest financial presentation of the automaker also includes a slide with focus segments, starting with compact, mid-size, and all-electric vehicles. The sports car segment is also listed in the presentation with three models to its name, in this order: GT-R, Z, and the Skyline for the Japanese market.
Over in the United States, the Q60 can be considered the coupe-bodied cousin of the JDM Skyline. And not that long ago, Infiniti took the veils off the Project Black S Concept that may preview the powertrain for the R36. Developed in collaboration with the Renault Sport Formula 1 Team, the one-off study marries a 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 with a dual-hybrid system consisting of three motor/generator units: one MGU-K and two MGU-Hs.
Moving on to the Z, chief product specialist Hiroshi Tamura didn’t rule out hybrid power for the NISMO high-performance variant. He did highlight that the customer’s voice ultimately dictates the direction of the Z NISMO, which is pretty curious for the company that has ignored pretty much every single complaint about the CVTs that Nissan and Infiniti currently utilize.
Speaking of Tamura, he confessed to the media that 99 percent of customers don’t want a hybrid powertrain in the GT-R even though it’s an inevitable outcome. Even the Prancing Horse of Maranello is going plug-in hybrid for the Progetto F171 entry-level supercar, which is expected to boast in the ballpark of 700 horsepower from a twin-turbocharged V6 and an e-motor.
“Adding a gasoline-electric hybrid setup like the Acura NSX could push the GT-R past the $200,000 mark,” Tamura said, and he’s onto something because the McLaren Artura plug-in hybrid V6-powered supercar retails from $225,000 in the United States. Tamura further mentioned that the R37 wouldn’t debut sooner than 2027 in an interview from 2019 when Nissan was already troubled financially, which leads me to believe that the R36 will be a thorough redesign of the R35 while the R37 will be a clean-sheet design.
In any case, don’t write off the R36 just yet because Nissan simply can’t afford to lose the GT-R from its otherwise dull lineup. The nameplate goes back to 1969 with the C10 generation, which proved itself in Japanese touring car racing over and over again. The C110 of 1973 was phased out after less than 200 units were produced, and the GT-R as we know it today can trace its roots back to the R32 model that entered production in 1989.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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