Nissan’s iconic GT-R is to be replaced by an EV supercar

It’s the end of the road for another automotive icon, the Nissan GT-R.

After 17 years and around 10 different updates, Nissan will cease production of its halo car by the end of the year.

The GT-R name might live on, but if it will be a completely different story.

This is because – shocker – the new one will be electric.

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From Skyline to GT-R

When Nissan unveiled the (then) new GT-R in 2007, for some reason, they dropped ‘Skyline’ from the name.

The first Skyline was launched in 1969 and Nissan produced five generations across five decades, but the one everybody generally remembers is the fifth one, the R-34.

The Skyline R-34 is the one that gave us limited-edition models such as the Spec Nür, and it’s the model that was famously driven by the late actor Paul Walker in the Fast & Furious franchise.

The GT-R may not have inherited the ‘Skyline’ name, but it had the same spirit.

When it first came out, it was an incredibly fast car that was surprisingly inexpensive.

It was just about the least expensive (new) car that could get you from 0 to 60 mph in about 3 seconds and, back then, the MSRP was way under $100,000.

What we can expect from the next Nissan GT-R

Nissan used different variants of the 3.8-liter twin-turbocharged V6 for every GT-R it produced.

The first one, the 2007 model, was the least powerful, coming in with 473 horsepower, while the GT-R50 by Italdesign was the most powerful model, with over 700 horsepower.

The new one, which may or may not still be called GT-R (Nissan hasn’t decided yet), will be at least twice as powerful, with a 1,300-horsepower drivetrain.

But it will be electric.

We’ve seen this script play out before so while this may be good news or bad news depending on how you look at it, it certainly isn’t surprising.