Nissan GT-R to leave European countries due to non-compliance with emission standards

Japanese brand dealers in the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and other countries of the Old World no longer accept orders for sports cars.

Nissan began production of its GT-R supercar in 2007, with production of the R35 model in Japan beginning in December. The model entered the European market in 2009, which also became the most successful for a sports car: according to the Carsalesbase website, buyers bought 1987 units. For comparison, in 2021, the model sold only 193 copies.

On the photo: Nissan GT-R

Last fall, it became known that the Nissan GT-R was leaving the Australian market due to new laws regarding vehicle testing in that country. As it turned out, the sports car does not meet the safety requirements for a side impact. The car left Australia before 1 November 2021. Recall that then, as a “farewell series”, dealers of the brand offered buyers 50 copies of the GT-R in special versions of T-Spec and Nismo.

Now it is reported that the Nissan GT-R is leaving several European countries: there is no model on the official websites of the Japanese brand. Also, according to Autoblog.nl, dealers in the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and some other countries of the Old World do not offer a GT-R, but in Germany and Belgium you can still order a supercar.

According to a Dutch publication citing a Nissan spokesperson, the GT-R is leaving the European market, at least for now. The fact is that the car does not meet the environmental requirements for emissions in force on the continent. The company obviously will not modernize the “stuffing” of the current version of the supercar, given the modest sales.

However, this does not mean that the Nissan GT-R successor will not appear later in the old world market. There is almost no information about him yet. At the beginning of last year, it was reported that the new generation with the R36 index would appear at the end of 2022. The car is expected to retain the current platform as well as the 3.8-liter V6 engine. However, you can get a hybrid add-on in the kit. Note that the current V6 engine in a sports car produces a maximum of 570 hp and 637 Nm.

To date, the model is still represented in the US. Recall that the peak year for the Nissan GT-R was 2008, when dealers sold 1,730 copies. As a result of Covid 2020, customers bought 304 units, which is 8% less than in 2019. In 2021, 227 units were sold in the US, this result is already 25% less than a year earlier.

At the same time, the price of a car for the 2021 model year in the US market starts at $113,540. This figure is significantly lower than, for example, in the Netherlands, where until recently the initial cost was 183 thousand euros (equivalent to more than 200 thousand dollars at the current rate).