Skyline coming to U.S. in 2007. Confirmed!

[Gripenfelter]

NISSAN CHIEF CARLOS Ghosn confirms the Skyline GT-R will debut at the Tokyo Motor Show in 2007, with customer sales starting soon after that. The car will make “around 400 hp” and offer “top-level driving performance.”

Video game fans on these shores who have long enjoyed the high-speed thrills of the GT-R will have a chance to drive it (so long as they can pony up the cash). Ghosn says the car will be sold here.

Sure, but why the long wait? Well, it’s not as bad as the first proposal, which was for a 2008 or 2009 GT-R launch. And, if you haven’t noticed, Nissan has been working on a lot of other products lately—and doing a pretty good job with them, too—so there weren’t spare engineers to toil away on a fairly low-volume supercar. At one point, the company was looking for a partner to help share development of the GT-R, but could not find one with whom it was happy.

Ghosn says the GT-R will offer “top performance worldwide, not just compared to our cars.

“If you look at a car and think it’s a tiger, you’re not going to be happy if you get in and drive it and it’s a cat,” Ghosn explains.

Ghosn says the price will be relatively reasonable: “You won’t have the feeling you’re being ripped off.”

That’s still kind of vague, but it sounds like the GT-R will not be another half-million-dollar Enzo/SLR/Carrera GT supercar, at least not in the finance department.

The exterior will probably not look like the concept car shown at Tokyo two years ago, either, though the decision on which of many design proposals submitted has not been made.

[sexualbanana]

That's P.I.M.P.

[SaskS14]

We already have Skylines sold new in Canada and the States.

The GT-R has been removed from the Skyline product line.

So it is no longer a Nissan Skyline GT-R and now just a Nissan GT-R.

[Hakkola]

Exactly what I was thinking, unless they start selling R34, why is there a pic of an R34. They're talking about new exterior, which is presumably the G35. I really don't get this, how old is this info?

[bigboom]

i think that this picture is another concept of the r35...and it doesnt look anything like the g35 coupe which is the skyline.

[Paul]

i don't understand this at all. i was under the assumption that the G35 was the new skyline with different badging and sold under the infiniti brand.

[thich]

g35=skyline

why the guy was still referring to the next GTR as the "skyline GTR"...

it's hard to get rid of a name that's been engraved into the minds of many japanese car enthusiasts :tongue:

hopefully the GTR will make it to Canada

[bigboom]

Originally posted by Paul
i don't understand this at all. i was under the assumption that the G35 was the new skyline with different badging and sold under the infiniti brand.

the g35 coupe IS the new skyline, except it is NOT the gtr. the new gtr has not been released yet and the only thing that there has been is concepts of ones such as the one i just posted.

[rage2]

Too bad the new GT-R will have nothing in common with the R32/33/34's. Expensive to build race bred motor that can handle ridiculous amounts of abuse, expensive to build AWD system, expensive to build suspension, etc.

The R35 will be a Ghosn "cost cutting supercar"... Gone will be the wild potential of the old R32/33/34 line. Only thing left will be the name.

[sputnik]

the concept actually looks nothing like the photoCHOP posted earlier... and actually has a similar roofline to the Infiniti G35

http://www.motortrend.com/features/news/112_news5/

[bigboom]

but its all sepculation...no one really knows what the gtr will look like. but rage2 is right...the new gtr will be no where close to the 32/33/34...nissan is going in a wrong way with it. ghosn took some right steps with nissan but is messing it up again!

[rage2]

Originally posted by bigboom
nissan is going in a wrong way with it. ghosn took some right steps with nissan but is messing it up again!

Nissan's going the RIGHT way financially. Ghosn saved the company. Too bad for enthusiasts though .

[bigboom]

he might have saved the company financially...but look at whats going to happen with this whole nissan/renault partnership...im not sure its right for nissans image which always used to be about an "enthusiast" car with unlimited tuning potential. ie. the sr20de engines, rb series 25 and 26. sure they have the vq35 now which is their flagship engine but its still not as beefy and tunable as the other ones.

also seems as if their quality control is slipping a lot. i guess we will see what the new gtr is made of though.

[rage2]

Originally posted by bigboom
he might have saved the company financially...but look at whats going to happen with this whole nissan/renault partnership...im not sure its right for nissans image which always used to be about an "enthusiast" car with unlimited tuning potential. ie. the sr20de engines, rb series 25 and 26. sure they have the vq35 now which is their flagship engine but its still not as beefy and tunable as the other ones.

also seems as if their quality control is slipping a lot. i guess we will see what the new gtr is made of though.

Ghosn doesn't care about the image. He cares about selling unique products and making a profit. He does that by extensive platform sharing. That's what he's famous for .

The Nissan image is different now, but it obviously works. Record sales, record profits. Different image for a different audience, too bad for the hardcore enthusiasts .

[thich]

well, one can always pray that the enthusiast-rich background of Nissan may still have hope to be revived.......... *crosses fingers*
lol

[pinoyhero]

Originally posted by bigboom
i think that this picture is another concept of the r35...and it doesnt look anything like the g35 coupe which is the skyline.

Now that looks sweet!

[method]

yeah um... this is nothing.

2007? give me break. You think things dont change in 4 years? I dont know why people are even debating now.

[Maxt]

Yeah the current skyline in Japan is the g35, and not anywhere as striking as the older designs..
Here is a first gen that I snapped at a rest stop just outside of Tokyo...

[Wildcat]

Originally posted by Maxt
Yeah the current skyline in Japan is the g35, and not anywhere as striking as the older designs..
Here is a first gen that I snapped at a rest stop just outside of Tokyo...

that looks like a second gen, heres a first:



the R34 is the 10th generation skyline, making the G35 platform the 11th gen i believe.

[Maxt]

hahah, now thats old.....is that single or twin turbo j/king....Maxt