Entry-Level Nissan RWD Sports Car Is Officially Dead

What could have become Nissan’s answer to the Toyota GT 86 is not viable due to manufacturing costs.

Such a model would have to use rear-wheel drive architecture and be light and small, and this is a drawback for Nissan as chief creative officer, Shiro Nakamura, told AutoExpress.

“You need a proper platform, because it has to be light and small and also affordable. In reality that is not easy to find. It also has to be rear-wheel drive – if we make it front-wheel drive it would be cheating. It is expensive and we are struggling.”

Adopting the rear-wheel drive platform, which will be used by Renault on the first sports car of the revived Alpine brand, is not an option either, as “we are not a mid-engined car company – we don’t have the same heritage as Alpine“, Nakamura added.

The initial plan hinted towards a production version of the iDX Concept, shown in Tokyo more than two years ago in two forms, Freeflow and Nismo, but the last time we heard about it, the automaker’s American Vice President was dismissing it.

Nissan fans will have to be content with the Z sports car and the GT-R supercar, which will remain in the lineup “forever” due to “customer loyalty“. The GT-R was revised for the new model year and presented in New York earlier in the week, but a successor is still a few years away, reportedly around 2020.

Note: Nissan iDX Concepts pictured