It’s hard to believe that someone shopping for a fast car could walk into a Nissan dealership and buy something that predates the Obama administration, the first release of Android OS, the first test of the Large Hadron Collider, and Justin Bieber’s music career, but the R35 GT-R is still trucking along. It’s old enough that early Japanese examples can be imported to Canada while the model’s still in production, but it won’t last forever. The automotive industry is going electric, and Yokohama’s terrible lizard will have to change with it. At the Japan Mobility Show, the world got a glimpse of where the GT-R is going with the Nissan Hyper Force Concept, an angular electric juggernaut with badging that’s as subtle as a sledgehammer.
Granted, the Nissan Hyper Force Concept isn’t officially a GT-R, but it doesn’t take much imagination to see the colors on the pixelated grille badge and picture what it would say. Come to think of it, pixilation in this context is extremely online, but that’s 2023 for you. Oh, and it has a set of side graphics that feel very ’80s Skyline, another nod to this car’s intentions.
Anyway, let’s zoom out for a second. The rebooted Nissan GT-R has never been a pretty car. It’s a flying brick, a cinderblock physicist hellbent on warping perceptions of speed. The Hyper Force Concept? Well, it takes the purposefulness of the R35, throws it in a Blendtec with a super silhouette car, then hits puree.
Unsurprisingly, the radically angular sheetmetal is shaped just as much by stylists as it is by the wind tunnel. Nissan’s keen to point out the front ducting optimized for cooling performance, a bi-level rear diffuser, and “a newly developed plasma actuator suppresses air detachment to maximize grip and minimize inner-wheel lift during cornering.” I’m sorry, what? Using plasma for flow control is fascinating stuff, and buzz around it is more commonly found in the aerospace industry than the automotive industry. Maybe it’s the next frontier for active aerodynamics, but either way, it feels perfectly GT-R.
Also GT-R? Absolutely crushing amounts of straight-line speed. The R32 was an unbeatable Group A monster, the R35 was a cut-priced supercar when it launched, and the Hyper Force Concept aims to turn things up to 11. How does 1,341 horsepower sound? Yep, that ought to scramble the odd pancreas. Nissan claims that a solid state battery feeds the bevy of electric motors, although given the non-driving nature of many concept cars, there’s a good chance it doesn’t really. Still, concept cars require a certain suspension of disbelief, and if Lamborghini rolled out a concept with laser beams for windshield wipers and spoiler-mounted swords, we’d still gawk at it.
The cabin of the Hyper Force Concept looks like a holodeck, and all the graphics were co-designed by the Gran Turismo magicians at Polyphony Digital. In GT drive mode, everything’s calm and blue, but flick the Hyper Force Concept into R mode, and everything glows red with violence. The suspension and active stabilization settings can be altered remotely on the fly, AR-enabled visors bring virtual racetrack ghosts into the physical world, and tiny screens flash with nerdy information from brake disc temperature to tire temperature to power distribution. Nissan claims that the Hyper Force Concept was designed with gamers in mind, and the sheer information overload is certainly on-brand for that.
After getting over the initial design shock, it’s easy to see why Nissan made the Hyper Force Concept. It’s powerful, purposeful, full of tech, and a bit ugly, all of which makes it a proper GT-R. The veiled badge on the front and the DR30 Iron Mask-aping sill graphics aren’t just there as lip service, because this is certainly a possible future for Nissan’s undisputed flagship.
(Photo credits: Nissan)
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I don’t think the GT-R is ugly, I think it looks purposeful.
It seems like someone at Nissan heard that the GT-R is considered ugly, decided “Ugly is our brand” (in fairness, see the Juke), and figured that they needed to ugly this up to reinforce that brand identity. This is just gratuitously ugly.
“Ugly is our brand”…, and figured that they needed to ugly this up to reinforce that brand identity. This is just gratuitously ugly.”
So they stole a page from BMW
BMW has definitely been uglying-up their cars, but I don’t think they ever had a reputation for ugliness.
Not historically no, but they are definitely making them ugly on purpose now so the influencer douches can be more obnoxious
> if Lamborghini rolled out a concept with laser beams for windshield wipers
Coming to v2 of the Cybertruck by the end of January!
I think people need to remember that concept cars before they where basically the finished article sans plates used to be a bit out there and it was just gradual interpretations of more extroverted concepts that got refined, productionised and passed to the finished article. Tone down everything on the sides and rear by about 35%, fix the face and integrate the interior graphics into pods and we have a more likely GTR.
Front end looks like a Camaro with a Cow Catcher.
It’s a Batmobile.
So Nissan is going to enter a factory-backed late model dirt track car?
https://www.motortrend.com/news/ctrp-1003-dirt-late-model-racing/
That front and interior are absolutely awful, the side profile and the rear are not bad though, and they could be toned down for an actually good design I think.
I’m starting a GoFundMe for Nissan so they can afford more polygons.
Those funds would be better spent on a designer who doesn’t have 1870’s design ethos.
Kind of looks like those custom cars based on an existing production car, where they can only build outward and the car ends up stretched out to achieve the negative space
Nissan is trying to make Jackson Storm! Cars universe confirmed
From the side view I am thinking NASCAR COT Gen 2. Omg Nissan is entering NASCAR. After the UAW & failed Ultium bankrupt GM, NASCAR will be Toyota, Nissan, & Ford. Then after Ford fails with their 100k EVs & Trucks, Kia will join NASCAR.
NASCAR in 2030 will be Toyota, Nissan, & Kia, you heard it here first.
With the crazy “future tech” toned down this could be a cool car, I’d buy one if it were ever in my income bracket
I’m trying to think of a worse name (that has actually been used) than “Hyper Force.”
And the car is ugly, too.
The Nissan “Friend-Me”?
An equally ugly concept car from 2013.
Horrible name. Not quite as ugly, though.
Today Mazda showed us a beautiful reimagining of the FD RX-7. Honda gave us an elegant new Prelude that they strongly hint is coming to showrooms soon. And Nissan gave us the nightmare you get after eating Taco Bell while binge-watching the Tron movies. At least it’s probably never going to make it off of the auto show stand.
That’s not at all the description I would have come up with, but, after glancing at the picture again, you certainly <<chef’s kiss>> -ed it!
Honda and Mazda put out great, clean looking concepts and Nissan gives us… this. It just looks like someone made a cyberpunk version of the R35.. you can do better than this Nissan!
awful.
The only question I have is, does Nissan let me finance this at 25% APR for 144 months?
25%? I’ve seen as high as 46.96%, at least from what friends in Canada tell me.
Only if you agree to run a paper tag and at least one space-saver spare.
How many body panels do i need to damage first?
Wow. Pointy!
Why did they write “Ass be force” on the side of it?
Was wondering the same…
Nissan does not have the mojo
Definitely has Silva Super Silhouette inspiration.
Styling is… a thing. Feels like an early 90s video game’s take on, “cyberpunk.”
I mean, it’d likely sell for quite a while as long as it’s competitive in its price class. The R35 is an odd duck, but for as long as it was good value, it sold well enough.
My real question, what does it weigh? I’ve driven R35s many times, but for me it was always too big a footprint, and too heavy. Yeah, it “manages its weight” extremely well, but for someone who pushes to get cars under 3000lbs, weight matters. Is this going to be only 4000lbs? Is it 4500lbs? 4700lbs like the 2024 C63 AMG?
I still won’t poo poo it. There’ll be things to learn from it, and that’ll benefit every other performance car after it in the end. For example, the R35 is what normalized rear-wheel steering, and that alone had a huge impact at the time.
that looks truly awful, I’m not sure what they were trying to go for here.
What’s with that front badge? Is it supposed to be a pixelated GT-R badge?
That’s the only part of this car that makes me go “hm” instead of “ah!”
The GT-R and the Cybertruck had a baby, then beat it with the ugly stick for a couple days, this is what the end result was.