One of the country’s most loved motoring nameplates of the ’80s may be making a comeback soon.
One of the country’s most loved motoring nameplates of the ’80s may be making a comeback soon.
Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn recently told that the next generation Nissan Skyline would be engineered for “all the world’s main markets”, including Great Britain, where this model, excluding the ferocious GT-R, has long since disappeared.
The Nissan Skyline was a successful family car offering that competed against the likes of the Opel Rekord and Toyota Cressida in the 1980s, but was then replaced in South Africa by the Maxima in 1992, a car that moved considerably up-market and could never match the sales success of the more affordable Skyline.
On the local market Nissan has tried to fill the gap between the Almera saloon and Maxima with the Primera, but this has also proven less than successful. At this stage, plans to introduce the dramatic new Primera seem to be on hold. With the likes of the Mazda6 and Honda Accord on the way, can Nissan afford not to compete?
The next Skyline will be topped again by a GT-R model, an essential part of Nissan’s line-up these days. It will resemble the 2001 GT-R concept (pictured) and power is likely to come from a turbocharged V6 with outputs ranging from 210 kW to 300 kW, depending on the model.
Next-generation Skyline will appear on the Japanese market in 2004, but the UK-spec car won’t arrive until 2005, which means that a possible SA introduction won’t happen before then.