Next-gen sports car icons could be twins

Production of the long-serving R35 Nissan GT-R is ending this year, while the NSX last rolled off the line in November 2022.

While a planned merger between Honda and Nissan fell over in March, the two brands could still work together for future models – and the GT-R and NSX have been picked as the two most likely candidates.

Speaking to US publication The Drive at last month’s New York motor show, Nissan North America Senior Vice President and Chief Planning Officer, Ponz Pandikuthira, said the brands are still in discussion about future models.

“Can we do a next-generation NSX and GT-R off the same platform, make the NSX authentic to what it stands for and make a GT-R authentic to what it stands for? So they are not clones?” Mr Pandikuthira reportedly said.

“Can you co-develop two cars like that? I think we can.

“The authenticity of this matters. An Acura NSX had a very different origin of what that car was. Super lightweight, all aluminium.”

“[The NSX was a] super precise, lightweight, aerospace execution, whereas a GT-R is a brute, but a sophisticated brute.”

Mr Pandikuthira’s claim comes despite Honda (or more specifically Acura, its North American luxury division which previously sold the NSX) executives previously insisting its next-generation sports car would be an electric vehicle.

Nissan meanwhile has remained coy about what the future GT-R will be, however a cooling in global demand for EVs has led to speculation that it’ll be a hybrid, rather than fully-electric.

Last year, global executive vice president of Honda Shinji Aoyama said the brand’s first electric sports car would launch in 2027 or 2028 and be “an NSX type of vehicle”, even if it might not wear the famed name.

There is still a chance the GT-R could go electric though, as the 2023 Tokyo motor show saw Nissan unveil the wild Hyper Force concept, an 1000kW EV.

Reports from Japan have also claimed the R36 generation model will feature solid-state batteries.