Hybrid firms for Nissan GT-R

Hybrid is the talk of Nissan town… And not just in reference to the car-maker’s efforts at the 24 hours of Le Mans this past weekend.

Just one of Nissan’s radical GT-R LM Nismo front-drive LMP1 racers made it to the finish of the French classic, but the concept showed potential. Indeed, the company vows it will be back faster and better in 2016.

But just as Porsche’s Le Mans-winning hybrid technology can be seen as a precursor for a likely hybrid-equipped 911, so, insiders say, the GT-R LM Nismo will provide the inspiration, if not the technology, for the next-generation GT-R road car.

motoring.com.au has already reported Nissan’s new Le Mans racer could supply engine technology for the next generation GT-R, but at the weekend’s World Endurance Championship round there was open discussion regarding the potential for Le Mans hybrid technology to hit the road in the next GT-R.

We quizzed both Nissan Australia boss Richard Emery and, in an exclusive video interview, the marque’s global motorsport chief Darren Cox (pictured left) at the 24-hour regarding the future of the GT-R.

And although both were tight-lipped in terms of details, the writing is on the wall – there’s a hybrid in the GT-R’s future.

Cox confirmed that learnings from the Le Mans program will be used in future Nissan performance models.

“That’s one of the main objectives of this program to learn from racing into road,” he told motoring.com.au, referencing as an example the filter down of turbo technology from the company’s GT3 program to the road going GT-R NISMO.

“I can’t talk too much about new road cars but you can see that class of car [GT-R] is become more hybrid dependant,” he hedged.

Emery, Nissan Australia’s CEO provided context to Nissan’s mindset when asked whether the LM’s hybrid technology would filter down to the next GT-R.

"Yeah absolutely… GTR has always been kind of the essence of our engineering and innovation. [And] you know, from a pure development perspective, in terms of speed and those sorts of things, it's getting to the point where there is not much improvement [left]…

“But certainly making the car more clever and more perhaps technically advanced — that is probably the next step for a product like GT-R… [This might be] developing the same sort of performance outcomes but maybe doing it cleverer with some new [hybrid] systems,” he suggested.

“I think that's probably what you'd expect and what we'd want to see from a brand that talks about its innovation.

“GT-R is the ultimate example of that — in everything that we do. So if there was anything that was going to trickle down you'd probably see it in GTR first," Emery explained.

— With staff