A top Nissan executive has confirmed that the next-gen Nissan GT-R is not coming at least until 2020.
In an interview with Motoring, Richard Emery, the managing director of Nissan Australia, ruled out the possibility that the successor to the 2009 GT-R will appear in this decade.
"To be honest the company is not even talking about it. We are close to the life cycle in terms of cars now and in the future. In terms of direct conversation around GT-R, it's not on the horizon," says Emery. "It's certainly not 2018, and I can't see it even in 2019. It's not on the product plan list for that period."
Up until now, market observers believed that the Japanese carmaker will launch the revamped GT-R in 2018. Motoring also reports that the delay in the GT-R has been caused by a halt in the production of current car models until mid-2016. The halt is mainly to address strict crash tests required by U.S. regulators.
Motoring cites its own sources and says that changes made to some of the GT-R's body parts, roof and internals have forced the company to push the production of the supercar to 2018.
The GT-R will retain the rear-wheel drive and front-engine platform when it arrives in the next decade. The supercar will get some design aspects from the company's 2020 Vision GT Concept.
The current GT-R has been available in the market since 2008 and Nissan has been increasing the car's performance. At its initial launch, the car produced 480 horsepower and 430 pound-feet of torque. Nissan priced the car at around $70,000.
By comparison, the 2016 GT-R produces 545 horse power and 463 pound-feet of torque. It is priced at about $103,000.
To keep customer interest intact and to compensate for the delay of the next-gen GT-R, Nissan suggests that it will keep on improving and upgrading the current generation GT-R.
