R36 Nissan GT-R: Everything We Know So Far

The R35 Nissan GT-R first arrived on the scene when dinosaurs still roamed the earth. It witnessed the rise and downfall of the Roman Empire, accompanied the great explorers on their journeys of discovery, was a muse for the sculptors of the Renaissance and watched smoke plume from factories during the Industrial Revolution.

Okay, not really, but it launched in 2007 and went out of production 18 years later, which is an absurdly long time for any car to stay on sale. Now its time is up, though, we have to turn our attention to the next big question: where’s the R36?

Rumours of a successor to the R35 have bubbled away for years now, even as the old car plodded on in production. It looks like we’ll be waiting a while longer yet, but it seems an R36 is indeed in the works. Here’s everything we know about it so far.

Is an R36 Nissan GT-R in development?

In development as in 'disguised prototypes running around the Nürburgring?' No. But 'in development' as in 'plans are being cooked up?' Yes. In July 2024, Car Throttle was told by Ivan Espinosa – then Nissan's chief planning officer, now its CEO – that "there is a project" when it comes to a

This is something that's been echoed by various Nissan execs in interviews over the last couple of years. The company has some rather bigger fish to fry at the moment, though, as it tries to get out of the financial strife it’s found itself in – it’s in the process of cutting around 20,000 jobs and closing two factories, and has paused development on several upcoming models.

However, after years of rumours and hints, Nissan CEO Ivan Espinosa confirmed that a new GT-R is in the works during a major media event in April 2026. He had this to say to Motor1:

"Yes, we will be working—we are actually working—on GT-R. Not many details I can share today, but the GT-R will come, and it will come with the credibility and credentials it has always had, because it's an icon of a company, but more so an icon of the industry."

So, even if it's still some years off, that's Nissan's toppest of top brass confirming that the company is working on the next iteration of the hallowed name.

What will the R36 Nissan GT-R look like?

At this point, we have no idea. We can, however, look back at a couple of concepts that might give us a hint.

Firstly, there’s Nissan’s entry in the Vision Gran Turismo project, which sees manufacturers design a concept for the Gran Turismo video game series. Nissan’s Concept 2020, debuted way back in 2014, when the R35 was a sprightly seven years old.

Never explicitly stated to be a glimpse at a future GT-R, it nonetheless carried several hallmarks of the car and its Skyline-badged predecessors: a front-mounted twin-turbo six-cylinder engine (now part of a hybrid system) driving all four wheels, a 2+2 cabin, and styling features like those iconic quad circular tail lights.

That concept’s name led many to assume that we might see a new GT-R in 2020, but that year came and went without so much as a hint of the R35 disappearing.

In fact, we’d have to wait until the 2023 Tokyo Motor Show for our next hint at a future GT-R, when Nissan debuted the Hyper Force concept. Once the shock of its super-angular bodywork had worn off, we could once again see plenty of GT-R family commonality in its overall silhouette and, once again, those distinctive rear lights – never mind that badge that looks like a minimalist eight-bit interpretation of the GT-R logo.

The big difference with the Hyper Force is that it’s fully electric, which leads us to our next question…

Will the R36 Nissan GT-R be petrol, hybrid or electric?

Initially, it was assumed any new GT-R would be fully electric – as we mentioned, that was the form the Hyper Force concept took. Since that car made its debut in 2023, though, things have changed rapidly in the car industry, with buyers of high-performance sports cars making it clear they're not yet ready for fully electric powertrains.

As a result, at the same 2026 media event where Espinosa outright confirmed a new GT-R, Nissan global product strategy boss, Richard Candler, told Motor1 this: 

"The current lithium chemistries are not capable of producing a GT-R-type product. We're not going to go with batteries in the next generation. No way."

So, the R36 GT-R won't be all-electric after all – doubtless music to the ears of enthusiasts all over the world. However, it probably will be electrified to some extent – various global emissions regulations are making pure combustion performance cars ever harder to get on sale, so any future GT-R will likely have to have some form of hybrid powertrain. Still, as the latest generation of hybrid supercars are proving, this needn't be at the detriment of performance. We'll be watching this space closely over the next few years for any more info on Godzilla's long-awaited return.