Photo: Celine Granetin / Unsplash. A Nissan GT-R (R35) at Malmby airfield, Sweden.
The last one was purple. On August 26, 2025, Nissan announced that the final R35 GT-R had left its Tochigi plant: a Premium edition T-spec in Midnight Purple, bound for a customer in Japan. That closed an 18-year run of about 48,000 cars, a stretch in which Nissan kept revising the GT-R every model year instead of replacing it. Nissan's farewell release
A supercar for anyone, anywhere
Nissan announced the car on October 24, 2007, and put it on sale in Japan on December 6, pitching it as a supercar for "anyone, anywhere, at anytime." Nissan's 2007 launch release It also dropped a name. The car went on sale as the NISSAN GT-R, without Skyline, two years after the GT-R PROTO concept. At launch its 3,799 cc VR38DETT twin-turbo V6 made 480 PS at 6,400 rpm and 588 Nm from 3,200 to 5,200 rpm, in a car weighing 1,740 kg. Nissan Heritage Collection
The U.S. got it as a 2009 model, priced from $69,850 before destination Nissan's 2009 GT-R press kit, and it made its North American debut in July 2008. Nissan's 2010 GT-R press kit
The hardware that made it different
The core idea was what Nissan called the Premium Midship package. The dual-clutch transmission, transfer case and final drive moved to the back of the car, a layout Nissan billed as the world's first independent transaxle 4WD. The gearbox was the GR6 dual-clutch, with a BorgWarner six-plate clutch and paddle shifters. Nissan's 2007 launch release
ATTESA E-TS decided where the torque went: a rear-biased system that could vary the front-to-rear split from 0:100 to 50:50, reading speed, lateral acceleration, steering angle, tire slip, road surface and yaw rate. The layout skipped traditional torque tubes, so the suspension could work independently at each corner. Nissan's 2010 GT-R press kit
Then there was the engine. Every VR38DETT was hand-assembled in a clean room at Nissan's Yokohama engine plant, while the cars were built in Tochigi. Nissan's 2010 GT-R press kit The builders are takumi, master craftsmen. In 2013 Nissan counted four, each fixing a plaque with his own name to the engines he built. Nissan's 2013 takumi release Over the full run, Nissan says, a core team of nine assembled every engine. Nissan's farewell release
Eighteen years of turning the screws
Output climbed from 480 PS at launch to 570 PS from the 2017 model year. The NISMO reached 600 PS with GT3 racecar-spec turbochargers and lightweight, balanced internals. Nissan's farewell release
The Nürburgring tells the same story in minutes and seconds. Nissan lists a 7:38 for a production car in 2007 on a partly damp track, 7:29 in 2008 with Toshio Suzuki driving, 7:26 a year later and 7:18 in October 2012. The best was 7:08.679 in November 2013, by a GT-R NISMO with track options and Michael Krumm at the wheel. In January 2024 a 2024 GT-R NISMO, driven by Tsugio Matsuda, lapped Tsukuba in 59.078 seconds. Nissan's farewell release
It raced and showed off, too. Nissan's list includes five GT500-class and three GT300-class wins in Japan's SUPER GT Championship, the 2015 Bathurst 12 Hour and a 2016 Guinness record for the fastest drift: 304.96 km/h in a specially tuned car. Nissan's farewell release
The last U.S. cars show how far the recipe went. For 2024 the Premium and T-spec made 565 hp and 467 lb-ft. The NISMO made 600 hp and 481 lb-ft and added a front limited-slip differential, a first for the GT-R. Drag stood at 0.26 Cd Nissan's 2024 GT-R press kit, against 0.27 in 2009. Nissan's 2009 GT-R press kit The bargain was gone, though: the 2024 Premium started at $121,090 and the NISMO at $221,090, before destination. Nissan's 2024 GT-R press kit
How it ended
The U.S. went first. In June 2024 Nissan said GT-R production for North America would end that October, and it sent the car off with two editions totaling fewer than 200 cars. The $151,090 T-spec Takumi Edition honored the engine builders with a red-etched engine badge and a gold VIN plate, plus Midnight Purple paint, NISMO carbon-ceramic brakes and gold NISMO RAYS forged wheels. The $131,090 Skyline Edition came in Bayside Blue with a Sora Blue interior. Nissan's U.S. sunset release
Japan got the final word. For its 2025 models, announced in March 2024, the Premium edition T-spec and Track edition engineered by NISMO got the weight-balanced piston rings, connecting rods and crankshaft previously reserved for the NISMO Special edition, plus aluminum takumi certification nameplates. Nissan warned that production was limited and some orders might not be accepted. Nissan's 2025 model release Japan was the R35's final sales region, and that Midnight Purple car was its last unit. Nissan's farewell release
The tuning world gave it a send-off as well. Liberty Walk lists a 2026 Final Edition R35 kit limited to 35 sets Liberty Walk, and the Liberty Walk story explains how its kits work.
What comes next
Nissan says this is not a permanent goodbye. CEO Ivan Espinosa admitted the company had no precise plan, but said "the GT-R will evolve and reemerge in the future." Nissan's farewell release
By April 2026 the message was firmer. At the New York auto show, Nissan North America chief planning officer Ponz Pandikuthira told The Drive to expect concrete announcements by 2028 and an R36 before the end of the decade. He said it would sit on an all-new chassis and need some level of electrification, and he argued that the VR38 block is too good to throw away. The Drive Later that month, Espinosa told Motor1 that Nissan is already working on the GT-R, though he shared no details. Motor1
So there is no date, no spec and no price. There is a promise, an 18-year benchmark and about 48,000 cars to keep the argument going. For the generations before it, read our R32, R33 and R34 ranking; if an R34 is the dream, here is how the 25-year rule works. More in JDM.
Specifications, dates and prices come from Nissan's global and U.S. newsrooms and its Heritage Collection. Comments on a successor come from Nissan executives' interviews with The Drive and Motor1. No TUNERS road test is claimed.
