Nissan Still Weighing Its Options On The R36 GT-R’s Powertrain

Nissan is in no rush to introduce a successor to the current R35 GT-R. So much so, it makes no secret of the fact that it has yet to decide what kind of powertrain it will use.

GT-R chief product specialist Hiroshi Tamura was in attendance at the recent Australian launch of the 50th Anniversary Edition Nissan GT-R and 370Z models this week and revealed to Car Sales the car manufacturer is still weighing its options.

“I have it in my mind, but not for outside. So nobody knows. I cannot tell you. But I can say, imagining for a next-generation [car] is already in a chat. Talking about the solutions,” he said.

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Quizzed about whether they are considering a hybrid or all-electric powertrain, Tamura replied that Nissan’s board hasn’t yet reached a decision.

“I have to wait. I am just the GT-R lead conductor for the orchestra. The company will show me the members of the orchestra. They need to decide who will play the violin and who will play the trumpet,” he said. “My point is what kind of technology do we need to install? Twenty years is the timing of the breakthroughs in technology. It is easy to understand about some current expansion way, but if we need to break through… it is a different story. It depends on the company direction.”

There is absolutely no doubt that Nissan will launch a replacement to the R35, but we will likely have to wait quite some time before that happens. Tamura reiterated previous assertions from the car manufacturer that, while the R35 is 12 years old, it’s not particularly long in the tooth in the history of the Skyline. In fact, the same basic architecture and powertrain was used for the R32, R33, and R34-generation models, so Nissan clearly thinks it has time on its side before the R35 needs to be retired.