Godzilla is already being primed to wake from its slumber. On Tuesday in Yokohama, Japan, Nissan President and CEO Ivan Espinosa told The Drive, “Yes, we are actually working already on the GT-R.”
While Espinosa noted there weren’t too many details to share, the enthusiast in charge of Nissan is the sole person who can green-light a new R36. He said the new GT-R “will come, and it will come with credibility and with the credentials that it has always had because it’s an icon of a company, but more so an icon of industry.”
The GT-R is “proof of what Akashi-san’s team can do technically,” Espinosa said. Eiichi Akashi is Nissan’s chief technical officer and the man now in charge of the automaker’s vehicle innovation department.
Earlier in April at the 2026 New York International Auto Show, Nissan North America Senior Vice President and Chief Planning Officer Ponz Pandikuthira told The Drive, “I’d say by 2028 you’ll see some concrete announcements, and hopefully before the decade turns you’ll see an R36 GT-R.”
In Yokohama, on Tuesday, Pandikuthira shed more light on that timeline and the reasoning behind it while speaking with The Drive. “The reason I said 2028 is that’s when we’ll actually know if there’s going to be a change in the administration, and then we’ll find out a trajectory of what emissions will look like, and then that’ll solidify the plans,” Pandikuthira elaborated. “That said, you can’t start in 2028. So clearly, a lot of the work will be done here, but hopefully by 2028, you know, with somebody like Ivan as the CEO now, I think it’ll get a higher priority, and we should be able to make some concrete announcements by 2028 of a timeline of when exactly you’d be able to see a new GT-R in showrooms.”
Pandikuthira already confirmed the next GT-R will be a hybrid and likely utilize the R35’s VR38 block, which would keep Godzilla with six gas-fed cylinders under the hood. Everything in the “powertrain’s going to be mostly new,” according to the SVP. He also said the R36 GT-R “has to be” on a new chassis and “it’s going to be an all-new car.”
The R35 Nissan GT-R died in August 2025, but the head honcho of Nissan already confirmed the R36 is real, it’s being worked on, and we are getting a sense of what it will be like. Sounds like we won’t have too long to wait for Godzilla’s return. Start marking your calendars and saving your pennies.
Got a tip about future product? Send us a line at tips@thedrive.com
The post ‘We Are Actually Working Already on the GT-R,’ Nissan CEO Confirms appeared first on The Drive.
