Enthusiasts, rejoice. Your day has come. Car people like you are now sitting in the hot seats throughout the house of Nissan.
In Yokohama, Japan, Senior Vice President and Chief Planning Officer for Nissan North America, Ponz Pandikuthira, in an exclusive interview on The Drivecast had a one-word answer when The Drive asked whether Nissan would consider offering a JDM retrofit kit at U.S. Infiniti dealerships for the upcoming Q50: “Yes.”
Listen to the entire conversation starting at the moment Pandikuthira makes your day below.
The feeling that just overcame you is shock, awe, and excitement. Enjoy this moment.
As a refresher, just over a week ago Nissan teased a new Skyline sedan for the JDM market. Two days later, Chairman Nissan Americas Christian Meunier confirmed what we all knew in our hearts: the new Skyline will indeed be the new Infiniti Q50 in the U.S., which, has been teased as a “high-horsepower” sport sedan with a manual transmission.
When posed with the question of whether a JDM Skyline retrofit kit might be available in the U.S. with a dealer warranty Pandikuthira didn’t stop with the simple answer of “yes,” rather the executive merely paused for a breath.
Pandikuthira followed with, “Let’s put it this way. First, whatever powertrain we bring to the U.S. will be tunable. So you can work with the right tuner. If we can offer it through the factory with all our warranties, we will. And sometimes if the volumes are too small, it’s actually a business better done with a tuner. So we partnered with tuners before. we could officially partner with them. And so we would definitely consider that and make sure that the supply chain’s in place, sharing the right mapping and ECU data so the tuner is well equipped to get a perfectly functioning car out there. So that’s an absolute yes. But what you’re referring to actually is very interesting proposition, which we could very easily do and which my planning team and I have really tossed around is what if you have an Infiniti version because that’s the right brand and the right demographic to bring in, but maybe there’s some purists out there who’d be like, ‘You know what? I’d like this to be like the Skyline that’s in Japan or whatever car that’s super authentic to the heritage of this. Help me make this.’ And we would love to facilitate that. Because a purist wants it, they know it. It’s going to be a very small, narrow, niche buyer and for sure we could facilitate that. There’s culture around it.”
“And those who are in it, they know it and these aren’t people who are trading their cars in and out, but they want to keep this collector toy in their garage. And we’d like to make that happen,” Pandikuthira said.
The powertrain Pandikuthira referred to? It’ll be the turbocharged 3.0-liter V6 out of the Nissan Z along with that car’s 6-speed manual transmission. An automatic will be offered for those that desire it. How do we know this? Earlier in the podcast Pandikuthira confirmed it. “So we’re like, okay, we’ve got a great powertrain with the Z. You got a three-liter twin turbo with 400 horsepower. So what if we do that manual transmission, but then give it the convenience of having a backseat and four doors. And that’s how this car came up,” Pandikuthira said.
The quote, “And we’d like to make that happen,” by Pandikuthira should give enthusiasts that were disappointed to learn the Skyline would indeed wear a Q50 and Infiniti badge hope. Start saving now, the JDM Skyline might finally be able to be had as a new car with a warranty in America.
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