The Nissan GT-R has finally reached the end of the line, with production of the supercar-destroying coupe winding up almost 18 years after it started.
In a statement on its Japanese website, Nissan said, “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.”
At the GT-R’s launch in 2007, it was hailed at the time for being on par with contemporary supercars but for a fraction of the cost, further elevating the status of the GT-R nameplate which had previously been affixed to flagship performance Skylines.
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Across its 17-year production run, all circa-44,000 examples have been powered by a twin-turbo 3.8-litre V6 engine – known as the VR38DETT – with drive sent to all four wheels through a six-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission.
Australia last saw the GT-R in local showrooms in October 2021, as the sports coupe was axed in November that year due to new side-impact regulations. A total of 993 examples were delivered between 2009 and 2022.
The writing has been on the wall for the past year or so, with Nissan Japan announcing 2025 model year updates for the R35 GT-R in March 2024, saying at the time “production is limited and some orders might not be accepted”.
This was followed in June by the unveiling of two sendoff special editions for the US market.
The GT-R nameplate’s future isn’t set in stone, though it’s likely the next-generation model will return as an electric vehicle (EV).
The Nissan Hyper Force concept at last year’s Tokyo motor show previewed the potential future of the GT-R as a 1000kW electric coupe, with reports from Japan claiming the R36 generation model will feature solid-state batteries.
Nissan’s global product chief Pierre Loing told Top Gear in September that regulations will force the end of the R35 GT-R, though the next-generation model could launch as soon as 2028 provided advancements in battery development continue at current rates.
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Hyper Force concept -
He also suggested that it’s not yet clear whether the new GT-R will be an electric vehicle (EV) or a hybrid.
“[…] we need to have a gap [in production between R35 and R36], because going into the electrified world, there is a lot of debate about ‘what is a GT-R in an era of electrification?’,” he said.
“We don’t have all the answers yet. We are in the middle of all those debates.”
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Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida
The death of the petrol-powered GT-R also comes at a tough time for Nissan, which is facing significant financial hardship.
Last month, Nissan said it would undertake major cost-saving measures in a bid to recover 400 billion Yen ($4.14 billion) by the 2026 Japanese fiscal year.
For context, its operating profit slid from 478.4 billion Yen ($4.69 billion) in April to December 2023 to 64 billion Yen ($663 million) across the same period in 2024. Its net income also dropped by 320.2 billion Yen ($3.3 billion) to 5.1 billion Yen ($52.8 million).
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