It was solely in July that Ivan Espinosa, Nissan’s head of world product technique, stated he was trying to construct the enterprise case for a contemporary Silvia being launched as a 3rd sports activities automotive to hitch the Z and GT-R.

Now he is revealed to Australian media, together with Drive, that Nissan is already plotting an structure for the automotive, which he stated must be electrified, although whether or not he meant a hybrid or electrical wasn’t confirmed.

“We have been doing a little very early upstream workout routines of what the structure may appear like,” he stated. “It is advisable discover one thing that may work globally so as to have sufficient scale.”

Espinosa stated making the automotive electrified would require vital funding, and that that is what’s proving troublesome in the meanwhile. One chance can be growing economies of scale by sharing the automotive’s expertise with different members of the Renault Nissan Mitsubishi Alliance, he stated.

Regardless of his constructive tone, Espinosa stated he nonetheless wasn’t positive whether or not the challenge would get the inexperienced gentle, but when it did he wish to see the automotive launched earlier than the top of the last decade.

The Silvia has historically been Nissan’s entry-level sports activities automotive. It was final offered within the U.S. throughout the Nineteen Nineties because the 240SX, and Nissan discontinued the mannequin globally in 2002.

Rumors of the Silvia’s return date again to nearly when the final Silvia bowed out of manufacturing. A Nissan designer from Europe additionally reignited issues in 2021 when he introduced design sketches for a imaginative and prescient of an electrical Silvia.

A serious hurdle for the Silvia is that Nissan additionally must put money into a brand new GT-R. The present R35 era bows out after the 2024 mannequin yr and Nissan stated {that a} successor is coming, albeit probably with a niche of a number of years.