WILL THE SKYLINE RETURN TO OZ?: Iconic nameplate on the cards for a low-volume return in re-engineered form as Nissan rebuilds its portfolio

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It’s no secret that Nissan has been navigating itself through some tough times globally, though the 92-year-old Japanese brand remains bullish about its future, with a plethora of new models scheduled to debut over the next few years – one of which is a comprehensively re-engineered Nissan Skyline sedan.

While it’s no longer a volume model in any market, Nissan has acknowledged the serious brand power of its heritage nameplates including Patrol, Z, Leaf, Xterra (a US-focused SUV) and Skyline – described as “Heartbeat Models” among its portfolio strategy towards ‘FY30’.

Nissan released two teaser images of the new-generation Skyline at its Nissan Vision event in Japan, including an aggressive front-end with an angled headlight arrangement inspired by the classic C10 Skyline range (1968-72), but in particular the legendary 1970 KPGC10 Skyline GT-R coupe.

The second image showed a rear quarter panel wearing a traditional ‘Skyline’ badge script, supported by a pair of red ‘stove-burner’ tail-light rings glowing ominously as a portent to the power on offer, and the power of this much-loved heritage lighting signature for the Skyline brand.

Chasing Cars spoke to Nissan’s global corporate executive for family, product and component strategy, Richard Candler, who admitted he’s a super-fan of Australian car culture and the country itself, and said he would love to see the Skyline nameplate make a return here!

“Yeah, I’d love to,” he said. “So, you know, I’m a big, big Skyline fan and GT-R fan. I’m a massive geek for GT-Rs – it’s one of my big passions in life. The two big countries where the Skyline following exists is the UK and Australia. When I was a young guy, back when I first came to Japan as an engineer, I bought myself an R33 and took it back to the UK.

“All the forums with GT-R, you know, there are so many Australians in the same place, so I’d love to bring it. I’ve got a lot of love for the Australian mindset towards that type of thing. And I think there could be a huge, huge opportunity to bring back some passion to the Nissan brand,” says Candler.

“It’s been a pleasure to work on that car [the V38 Skyline]. There’s a few of them where you want them on your CV, and you know, trying to put your heart into these things. That’s been one.

“[Re-engineered] Skyline has moved very quickly – it’s our first 30-month-program product [in the new ‘Re:Nissan’ brand revitalisation]. And with that, of course, we haven’t really done the full global rollout on this type of thing.

“We also need to understand if there are special ways to bring in a quantity of cars, because, I mean, in the best will in the world, [Skyline is] not going to be a huge seller. If we can find a way to homologate it with sort of limited numbers [for Australia], or something like that, we can certainly discuss it.”

The extensively refreshed Skyline sedan in development is itself a heavily re-engineered version of the Infiniti Q50 sedan that was sold in Australia from 2013-19 (and continues to be sold in Japan, badged as a Nissan Skyline, to this day).

The existing V37 Skyline sedan offers two V6 powertrains – the 3.0-litre VR30 twin-turbo with 224kW/400Nm (GT), 298kW/475Nm (400R) and 309kW/550Nm (Nismo – launched in 2023) outputs; and the 3.5-litre VQ35 in the GT Hybrid with 268kW/546Nm. 

Nissan also hinted at a revival of the Infiniti version of the V38 Skyline sedan – badged Q50 in the US and Canada – which is expected to look identical to the slightly retro new Skyline, apart from badgework and steering-column placement. There has been no mention of a new Q60 coupe version, which ended production in 2022.

US media has also mooted the potential of a manual-transmission Infiniti Q50 performance model, as well as a likely on-sale date of 2028.

That means Richard Candler and Nissan’s management team has about 18 months to work out how it can engineer a low-volume V38 Skyline to act as a halo model for Nissan’s Australian showrooms – no doubt carrying a price-premium to combat any ADR work and any NVES fines – while pleasing the brand’s fan base.

Aside from the Infiniti Q50 sedan and Q60 coupe (both discontinued in 2019), Australia has also seen the V36 Skyline (badged as the Infiniti G37 coupe/cabrio), as well as potentially thousands of second-hand imports, and the legendary R32 Skyline GT-R as a proper Australian production model.

Nissan manufactured the successful R31 Skyline sedan and wagon from 1986-90 in Melbourne, alongside a locally engineered, rear-drive four-cylinder version called Pintara (1986-89) and was planning on doing an Aussie-built version of its R32 Skyline successor.

The R31 Skyline had been a good money-earner for Nissan Australia back then, but management decided to abandon any R32 production plans in lieu of adapting and manufacturing the front-drive U12 Bluebird (the second-gen Pintara) … which helped bury Nissan’s car-manufacturing operation here..

Australia also saw fully-imported versions of the R30 Skyline sedan and liftback, the C210 sedan and coupe, C110 sedan and hardtop (badged Datsun 240K), and the 1960s second-gen Prince Skyline.