Production of the R35 Nissan GT-R supercar has officially ended in Tochigi, Japan after a long 18 years. It marks the end of an era which nobody could have predicted would be so long back in 2007 when the successor to the beloved R34 began rolling off the assembly line.
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Workers at Nissan’s Tochigi plant, which is situated about 100 km north of Tokyo, gathered to celebrate the end of R35 production on August 26. That final unit was a Premium edition T-Spec with Midnight Purple paint. The lucky owner lives in Japan.
While there is no R36 Nissan GT-R officially in the works, we’ve heard repeatedly that such a thing is at least in the early stages of development.
The new President and CEO of Nissan, Ivan Espinosa, hinted at that. After 18 remarkable years, the R35 GT-R has left an enduring mark on automotive history,” he said. “Its legacy is a testament to the passion of our team and the loyalty of our customers around the globe. Thank you for being part of this extraordinary journey. To the many fans of the GT-R worldwide, I want to tell you this isn’t a goodbye to the GT-R forever, it’s our goal for the GT-R nameplate to one day make a return.”
Controversial from the beginning, some will of course laugh at the news the R35 is done. Others might feel a sense of relief, having wondered if that day would ever come. And still other enthusiasts will mourn the loss of what they consider one of the great Godzilla models.
There’s little doubt each R35 was made with care. Nissan employed just nine Takumi to assemble each VR38 engine by hand, which would take around six hours to complete. That can’t be said about any other Nissan manufactured in the past 18 years.
Critics complained the R35 was too technological from the beginning. They argued with its many advanced systems, racing one was more akin to playing a video game than driving a supercar.
What’s ironic is now that the current GT-R has wrapped up production, it technologically has been surpassed by many contemporary supercars, something critics have used to beat up on it. Some people will just never be satisfied.
Back in November 2013, the R35 achieved its best lap time on the Nurburgring in Germany. A GT-R Nismo outfitted with track options like a weight reduction package, aero tuning, and a tuned suspension got around the Green Hell in 7 minutes and 8.679 seconds.
Appropriately, the last of the R35s went to the Japanese domestic market. After all, throughout the supercar’s run, 37 percent of the roughly 48,000 units made were sold in Japan.
Images via Nissan
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