The Skyline badge has earned its reputation. From racing to the streets, the badge represents the kind of performance Nissan was famed for in the 1990s, and later, in the early aughts with the R35 GT-R sports car. Now, the famed badge will make a return, though it won’t be on a new GT-R. Instead, Nissan will revive the name for a sedan.
Nissan Does Make A Skyline Sedan Already, You Just Can’t Buy It
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Nissan never really stopped making Skylines. You just haven’t been able to buy them Stateside. As usual, Japanese automakers reserve their best and most exclusive performance models for their home markets, and the current Skyline is no exception. A Nissan-badged performance sedan, the Skyline makes use of a twin-turbo V6 engine. We know it as the V6 from the new Nissan Z.
At this year’s Japan Mobility Show, Alfonso Albaisa, Nissan’s global design director, confirmed to Auto Express that the new Skyline will be “inspired by the past, but it won’t be a retro styling exercise.” That’ll differentiate it from the current Z, which certainly features plenty of retro inspiration. Expect something more like a current GT-R: a car with more modern design cues but a few retro touches, like its iconic four circular tail lights. The goal will be to make a Skyline that is “aggressive and modern, with proportions that recall the original, but with a design that looks ahead.” It’ll sit between the Z and the GT-R in terms of performance, intended to fulfill the classic role of a sports sedan, blending performance with usability.
What Engine Will The New Nissan Skyline Have?
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Nissan’s latest Skyline should have all the good stuff available at Nissan right now. Expect at least 400 horsepower (the base Z’s current output), rear-wheel drive, and maybe, maybe a manual transmission. That last item will be a sticking point. The current Z, of course, offers a six-speed manual and rear-drive, so fitting it to a larger sedan body shouldn’t be any great engineering challenge. However, Nissan also offers an automatic with the Z – something enthusiasts weren’t so happy with – and to such a degree that Nissan eventually caved to pressure and fitted a six-speed to the previously automatic-only Z NISMO. This is also how current Skylines are sold in Japan. Should the car come to the US, it should be a no-brainer to offer a stick.
Unfortunately, the odds that this car will come to other markets are slim. Nissan, to put it lightly, is pretty hard up on cash at the moment. A new sedan model exclusively built for performance isn’t going to sell in great numbers, and tariffs will make production expensive. However, Nissan is in the middle of reviving other old names, like the Xterra, so fans have a lot to look forward to, even if the Skyline should fail to leave its native Japan once again.
