It was 17 years ago that Nissan dropped the latest GT-R on our hands and it was a breakthrough. It incorporated a clever all-wheel-drive system, which sounded heavy on paper but made the car incredibly fast on the road, especially when it was first introduced. It looked great too and leveraged lots of modern tech. Now though, it’s about to leave production and one Nissan executive just shared what to look forward to in the future.
That executive is Matthew Weaver. He’s an award-winning designer in his own right and the VP of design for Nissan in Europe. Speaking to Top Gear he recently revealed that the next GT-R will have “Godzilla elements” within its design. Despite that vague statement, there’s much to pull out of his comments.
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In a full interview he openly admitted that with projects like the GT-R, it’s important to “pull familiar details through. If it’s a GT-R follow-up, the customer and fanbase want to know it’s still a GT-R.” To him, the design must follow the functionality of the car though.
“The thing with the GT-R is that it’s got to perform in each area: aero, speed and performance. That’ll dictate it. The GT-R was never about winning beauty contests – it’s very much a functional machine. I remember working on the last one, where we spent days and nights in wind tunnels. I’ve never done anything like that since with any other product. So, without a doubt, these things will dictate the shape of the next car,” he says.
He adds: “On top of that, we’ll add certain ‘Godzilla’ elements in where we can.” Expect some dramatic departures from the R35 in the interest of speed, downforce, cornering ability, and more. At the same time, don’t be too shocked to see a quartet of round tail lights in the rear or some sharp slanted headlights at the front. So long as they play well with the functionality of the car, they could be the DNA that connects this upcoming generation to the past.