Nissan Would Build The R35 Beyond 2040 If It Could

2024 will finally see Godzilla lay to rest. With production having started all the way back in 2007, it’s a bit of a miracle that the R35 GT-R has lasted as long as it has but if Nissan could, it has said it would ‘love’ to double that 17-year production run.

Speaking with Top Gear, Nissan’s global product chief Pierre Loing said “It’s been on sale for 17 years and we’d love to make it another 17 years, but the regulator gives us some trouble!”

It doesn’t sound like we’re much closer to a hypothetical R36 either, but that’s something Loing pointed out isn’t an issue for Nissan: “But if you look at the history of the GT-R badge, we’ve had gaps before,” he said.

“The gap between the Kenmeri Skyline GT-R ending in 1975 and the R32 starting in 1989 was even larger. The GT-R is strong enough to live with these gaps in its production. And we need to have a gap, because going into the electrified world, there is a lot of debate about ‘what is a GT-R in an era of electrification?’ We don’t have all the answers yet. We are in the middle of all those debates.”

Of course, we’ve expected for some time there will be a hefty weight for the next GT-R as Nissan figures out what to do with it, with reports widely touting an all-electric car that will serve as a spearhead for the manufacturer’s solid-state battery technology. It’s that battery that is the likely culprit for the wait.

Speaking with us earlier in the year, Nissan’s chief planning officer Ivan Espinosa stated: “There is a project. Once I have the battery ready, and I can very easily do the thing around the battery. The challenge today is the batteries.”

For now, though, we’ll be putting on some sad music and wishing we were in that alternate timeline where the R35 GT-R still had another 17 years to offer us.