Nissan is apparently at least somewhat serious about bringing back the Silvia. It’s not definite by any stretch, but it’s also not a random comment uttered by an exec in a throwaway line either. One thing Nissan is certain of though, is that if the Silvia becomes anything, it’ll be electrified in some way.
Speaking to Australia’s Drive, Nissan Vice-President of Global Product Strategy Ivan Espinosa says that the company is exploring ways of bringing the sub-Z sports car back in some way. “We’ve been doing some very early upstream exercises of what the architecture could look like,” he said.
Espinosa was adamant on three major points that will greatly affect how the Silvia will materialize, if at all. First, it will have to be sold in all major markets, which already differentiates it from the Z, as isn’t sold in Europe: “You need to find something that can work globally in order to have enough scale.”
Second, it will have to be electrified. That’s kind of a given if the first point is true. The Z cannot meet European emissions and noise requirements. It might even be the first affordable electric sports car. Nissan is exploring building it from the ground up. “This requires a serious level of investment, and this is what’s proving a bit difficult at the moment,” said Espinosa.
Lastly, and making things even harder, Espinosa does not want Nissan to partner with another company to build Silvia. This seems like a pointed comment toward Toyota and BMW’s alliance for the A90 Supra. “Not on these kinds of cars,” he asserted, “And also because it’s one of the things that Nissan can do very well.” That’s quite a confident statement, one that we’re honestly surprised — but pleasantly so — to hear a Nissan exec say.
Espinosa reiterated many times that this is not a guarantee, and that a difficult path lies ahead. He also acknowledges that the sports car market is shrinking, but that he’s trying his damndest to make it happen. Interestingly, this seems to be unrelated to an electric Silvia design based on the CSP311 shown in illustrations in 2021.
Will an S16 happen? Well, we’re a little bit more confident than last month, when we basically dismissed Espinosa completely. Espinosa says he would love to see something by the end of the decade. So would we, but gun to head, we still wouldn’t bet on it materializing. We hope to be proven wrong, though.
And an updated 1600cc type R engine as a range extender?
I had this whole long thing typed up last week about how this will never see the light of day because of the loss of consumer choice due to the ruthless quest for efficiency and cost saving to increase share value but I ran out of steam after getting distracted.
It’s sad that cars people actually get excited about are nothing more than props to get you thinking about the brand and which clone of a silver hatchback with high floors to give you the sensation of ground clearance you will actually end up being able to buy.
Nissan already have a 400hp sports car, there is room for a 200hp or 300hp one to fight the BRZ.
Going back in time, over here, there were a ton of both cheap and cheerful coupés and sometimes more serious sports cars made from their compact sedan. The Scirocco was based on the Golf, the Mercury Capri convertible was based on the Madza 323, Toyota’s Celica was a coupé Carina, Levin and Trueno are Corollas, Paseo is Tercel, MX-6 is 626, MX-3 is 323, CRX is Civic, Prelude is a coupéier Accord coupé and the list goes on and on. The Eclipse was based on the Mitsubishi Galant, I think? And the AWD turbo ones could played in Camaros and Mustangs playing field. Thinking about it, the Mustang was just a cool and sporty Falcon at first!
Nissan’s lineage is ripe with this. The mid-90’s 200SX was based on the B14 Sentra, the early 90’s 1600NX and 2000NX were made from the B13 Sentra, the late 80’s Pulsar NX was related to the Sentra, and this era also had the nice-looking Sentra Sport -there is one picture on Wikipedia, look it up! It looks like a stretched hatchback Tercel!-, and before that there was the early- to mid-80’s Pulsar, related to… you get the jist.
Fast forward to right now and look at the Leaf. There is a 148hp one and a 215hp one, depending on the battery pack, being 40 or 62 kwh. Let’s consider the latest Leaf as if it were a B13 Sentra. This Sentra had a cheap and cheerful 1600NX coupé version, and a more serious 2000NX coupé on offer, and with T-Tops!
Since it will be electric, it should play on the letter E, so Nissan 40SE and 62SE? Nissan Silvia 40EX and Silvia 62EX? There is another way to mix those letters that would be a jab to what Tesla alluded to when they named their Model 3, but I guess my comment would get rejected. There should be three or four numbers in the name, but we can’t go over 400 to respect the 400Z in the hierarchy.
The Leaf is heavy but has a low center of gravity and lots of torque. Tune the suspension settings a bit and give it a longer, sleeker and fastback-ier body and BAM! You have a cheap-ish sports car with most of the development cost already absorbed by the simple Leaf, of which they already sold over half a million. Still slower than any other electric car, I mean, it’s a Leaf, but engineer it to be a good driver and it will sell the same way as the BRZ.
Heck, make it bubbly and shorty with a body mimicking the old 2000NX and Toyota Sera, throw-in a simple mechanical T-Top for good measure and you have the only electric open-top sports coupé on the market.
Anyway, a global sports car, lower-tier than the Z-car, and electric? Completely feasible with Nissan’s means!
So the Ford Capri is actually getting a rival?
Maybe I shouldn’t be *this* excited.