Nissan Teases Return of Iconic JDM Coupe You've Probably Never Heard Of

The Nissan Silvia name has been around since the mid-1960s on a series of cute and iconic sports cars and coupes over the years, under various names and even the Datsun brand. It's actually somewhat surprising that there's not currently a Silvia on the market anywhere, but that could soon change as a Nissan boss has recently teased a return of the nameplate to ... something sized down the middle of the current crop of Nissan sports cars, the Z and GT-R. Here's what was said about the Silvia's potential return, as well as what MotorTrend might expect from such a car if it were to ever materialize.

Nissan's Vice President of Global Product Strategy Ivan Espinosa recently spoke with TopGear.com about the prospect of future Nissan models and the Silvia came up in the conversation. When asked if we could ever see something like a Silvia sports car again, Espinosa replied: "We cannot do these products regionally or as one-offs because it just doesn’t make sense. But there is a chance. It’ll be a challenge, but it’s my job to find ways to do stuff like this because I think it’ll be great for customers and the brand, and if I can put the right formula in place we could make it work." So, that's not confirmation that something is already in development, but it does show intention for a new Silvia from the man perfectly positioned to make it happen.

Espinosa continued talking to Drive about the concept a few weeks later, claiming that there have been "very early upstream exercises" for the new design, and that whatever ultimately materialized, if anything, would certainly be electrified to some degree. The exec claims he doesn't want to partner with any other automaker for the project, and that it could be ready for reveal by the end of the decade. However, Espinosa also claims it won't be easy as the sports car market is "shrinking."

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An even bigger question is what a modern Silvia could, or even should, be at this point. Nissan as an automaker has already sworn off a future of combustion vehicles, promising to go hybrid and eventually fully electric in the next couple of decades. That would mean we won't see any future gas engine development, so a Silvia would have to stick with an updated version of what Nissan currently offers, or it could go fully electric by the time it eventually arrives to better fit newer brand values and propel new EV sales with marketable and recognizable Silvia branding—but is that what anybody would want?

The Top Gear article already outlines that the Silvia would likely be planted in the Nissan lineup somewhere between the current Z sports coupe and the on-its-way-out GT-R supercar that ends production this year. The Z currently makes right around 400 hp, and the GT-R keeps things under 600 hp, which wouldn't leave much wiggle room for a Silvia, if we're honest. But it's likely Nissan would want to place a Silvia there, not to make sure it has 500 hp, but instead to make sure it can fetch premium or even luxury pricing to help pay for development. Otherwise, the obvious answer for a true revival of the Silvia would be something even more affordable or roomier and less aggro than the Z coupe (some later Silvias were decent-sized four-place coupes, after all), and more of a rival to the Mazda Miata, Subaru BRZ, and Toyota GR86 sports cars, but that doesn't appear to even be a consideration.

We've already speculated that the next-gen GT-R development would likely have to hesitate and wait for solid state electric battery development said to be coming to production across the industry by 2030. That would afford better weight savings without compromising the acceleration and power afforded by an electric powertrain in a smaller sports car or supercar package. It's likely a Silvia would benefit from this same tech along a similar timeline of development, so we should probably expect a new all-electric Silvia by 2035 if we're going to get anything at all. But will it still deserve the Silvia name at that point, or will it be just another branding effort to transfer nostalgia over to a new generation of technology? Maybe that'll be enough to enough people to make this work.