by Brad Anderson
- Before an all-new Z launches, Nissan will keep updating the current car.
- Nissan says it will lean into the heritage of the Z brand moving forward.
- The current Z was recently facelifted and the Nismo got a six-speed manual.
The R36-generation GT-R isn’t the only new sports car that Nissan is thinking about. In a recent interview, the company’s product and planning boss for the Americas is already thinking about the next Z car, even though it won’t arrive until the next decade.
The existing Nissan Z was recently refreshed with a revised design and the addition of a six-speed manual for the flagship Nismo variant. According to Ponz Pandikuthira, Nissan is eager to continue updating the existing model while leaning on the Z brand’s heritage.
Read: Nissan Gave The Z Nismo More Than Just A New Manual For 2027
“A lot of it is going to be heritage-based,” he told The Drive. “Go back to the authenticity of what Z was in the past. Create special editions that resonate with that heritage and keep that animated cycle plan.” According to Pandikuthira, Nissan isn’t interested in simply building the Z and then walking away, without doing what it can to keep it fresh.
New Zs To Come
“You’ll see a lot of that animation coming through special versions between now and say the next three years,” he added, “and then we’re actively talking about what that next generation will look like.”
It seems likely that whenever the next-generation Z is ready for primetime, it will launch after the new GT-R, which is expected to retain the twin-turbo VR38 engine, but morph into a hybrid.
“[The Z has] also got to make sense with what that next generation GT-R will look like,” he said. “It’s got to slot in there below where a GT-R would be.”
The current Z shares its platform with the old 370Z, albeit equipped with the VR30DDTT engine that premiered in the Infiniti Q50. A future version would greatly benefit from an all-new platform, but given that Nissan isn’t in a particularly strong financial position and a future Z wouldn’t sell in high numbers, justifying its development could be difficult.
