If you had even the slightest chance of making it happen, wouldn’t you want to revive the iconic Nissan Silvia sports coupe? Ivan Espinosa, Nissan’s VP of Global Product Strategy, wants to do the same, and he recently told Australian outlet Drive that “We’ve been doing some very early upstream exercises of what the architecture could look like.”
If everything goes through — and as anyone who was let down by the cancellation of the IDx project will tell you, that’s a big if — the next Nissan Silvia would be electrified in some form, and it would take a few years to arrive at the minimum. Espinosa told Drive that he “would love to see something before the end of the decade,” meaning if this revival materializes at all, we might not see fruit until 2029.
A third Nissan sports nameplate to complement Z and GT-R is the stuff of dreams, but if Nissan is serious about reviving the Silvia nameplate, it absolutely can’t afford to cock it up. After all, we’re talking about one of the most important nameplates in the history of Japanese enthusiast cars, even if Nissan didn’t use that name for it in America.
The Nissan Silvia didn’t start life as anything particularly motorsports-oriented, but it was an achingly pretty coupe. Possibly too pretty for this world, as only 554 original Silvias were made. For the next generation, Nissan dumbed it down a bit, using the platform from an economy car rather than from a sports car, and guess what? It worked. Not only did the second-generation Silvia sell well, it came to America as the 200SX, planting a seed that wouldn’t fully blossom until the late 1980s.
Sure, the S12 Silvia did offer some compelling performance options, but the S13 changed everything. For the American market, Nissan initially fitted it with the engine from a Pathfinder and called it 240SX. We’re talking about the car that set the modern blueprint for drifting in America. Not only did it feature a balanced front-engine, rear-wheel-drive chassis, it was cheap and intrepid owners could swap in a turbocharged CA18DET or SR20DET engine from Japan, or simply tune the suspension and drivetrain to their heart’s content. It’s a sports coupe that became so successful in drifting that people are still building them and sliding them today, some 36 years after the S13 Silvia first launched in Japan.
The S14 Silvia and 240SX that followed was more of the same, even though it was essentially a completely new car. While it didn’t enjoy quite the same popularity as the S13 model, due in part to being in a different car tax bracket in Japan and in part to having a shorter production run, we’re still talking about a cornerstone car in the scene.
To pull this proposed revival off successfully, Nissan really just needs to stick to four tenets — Keep it small, keep it light, keep it affordable, and keep it rear-wheel-drive. Now, affordability and lightness of electrified vehicles is relative given current battery technologies and costs, but so long as it doesn’t weigh as much as a damn Pathfinder and cost as much as a Z, Nissan ought to do at least half-decent. At the same time, nothing’s set in stone, so don’t get your hopes up too high. Ideas get cut from product planning all the time for all sorts of reasons, and the birth of Nissan’s next coupe is anything but guaranteed.
(Photo credits: Nissan)
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I had a red ’94 240SX Convertable which was a “pleasant” car. It was underpowered (155hp) and had a shameful excuse for a transmission plus a terrible audio system. But in SOCAL with the top down, it was a wonderful beach cruiser. In stock form, it never elicited any agressive driving impulses which was fine as I had two car seats strapped in the back most of the time. I really think that the car that Nissan might be thinking of is vastly different than what enthusiasts are thinking of.
Owning a 96 S14A (au spec so manual SR20DET) and a current manual Z
I’m 100% in on this and will be pre ordering if they can make it fun.
Ev 250mile range rwd. Sure why not. Oh and traction control i can properly turn off. (looking at you Z)
“small” doubtful
“light” not happening
“affordable” definitely not happening “rwd” maybe, in the lower trims
but hey I’m sure it’ll have a “””drift mode””” like that means anything in an ev
I would be surprised if they do RWD, their EV so far have been FWD / AWD.
The Chrysler of Japan.
Like the US counterpart, they have cornered the market for airport rentals and upside down car loans. I am not sure reviving just a name plate can save them.
They probably drum up more excitement by bringing the full Renault line up instead.
Are marketing and politicians so out of ideas that they have to constantly recycle the “glorious old days” that only exist in lucid dreams?
Yeah, the only reason I would be in the Nissan dealer showroom is for the new Z (which I might have soon.) Otherwise all their other products are meh and use the wonderful CVT. I really want Nissan to turn around, but I don’t really see that happening.
But hey, if you want something cheap and have sh!t credit Nissan’s your answer.
As much as i want it to happen, I think it is for the best not to expect anything to happen. That way we can avoid the possible disappointment.
“Electric”
I’m already mad.
“. For the American market, Nissan initially fitted it with the engine from a Pathfinder and called it 240SX”
I recall reading that the 2.4L engine came from the Nissan hardbody pickup truck.
And I also predict that a new Sylvia/240sx will be a disappointment to the enthusiasts.
What platform would they put it on? The old FM platform that is now over 20 years old?
Honestly what I think Nissan needs is a new all electric Maxima sports sedan that is RWD and AWD on a no-compromises dedicated BEV platform (as opposed to the compromised ICE-derived platform the Nissan Ariya uses).
Also have an SUV version being the next gen Murano… getting it back to being the CUV version of the Maxima sports sedan.
And have Infiniti Q/QX versions of these.
If they’re gonna do a new Sylvia, maybe just have it as coupe version of a new Maxima.
And that same platform can be used for a new Skyline, Skyline GTR and Infiniti G-something.
Nissan needs to get its mojo back. And an all-new RWD/AWD high performance BEV platform for midsize to large vehicles and high performance vehicles might do the trick.
If I recall everyone only wanted the Prelude’s and Integra’s new (I’m late Gen X). Maybe a Probe or MX6 because V6 power was available. Being rear drive it seems a bit of an odd duck in this price and size range. Granted this period was possibly peak Nissan.
Hey, what’s with that pic of the Prelude at the bottom??
Some douchebag marketing exec: “Ok, I hear you, but what if…. bubbling noises…. we made it a crossover?”
And the conference room cheered
…and it gets designed by committee via mathematical formulas designed to maximize ROI.
They could call it the Nissan Silvia Cross, and make it front-wheel drive, give it standard 24″ wheels with narrow low profile tires designed to quickly fail, make fake 240SX noises inside the cockpit, and have a grille that takes up the entire front end of the car.
MSRP of $90,000USD.
Next quarter’s financial results statement, after somehow selling 1100 of them anyway:
“This clearly indicates the market for sports cars has softened. Nissan will be recommitting to our focus on making ~overpriced grenades~ products that represent the needs and desires of car buyers up and down the product portfolio.”
Edit: my kingdom for markdown or at least formatting options on mobile
It’ll be a CUV based on the Rogue.
Sorry.
Nissan Silvia Cross.
Eh, we had one for a while, 1989 model. Unmemorable for the most part.
Yeah, they were always very average coupes (of which there were many) in the US. Another case of “legendary” status later attained thanks to dumb movies, video game familiarity of the JDM version, or cars that have had engine swaps and other major mods done.
When did the 240SX become “legendary” again?
At drift events, and pretty much only drift events.
If you’re not in to drifting it’s just a coupe that seems to suddenly be worth a lot of money because most of them have been smashed up now.
I used to compete at drifting and S13s were so easy to do skids in. Weld the diff, turn up the boost, the cheapest coilovers you could find, rack spacers for more steering lock and you were done. So obviously I used an MX5 and struggled with low power and the short wheelbase.
Honestly, about 15 years years ago in the US. They became desirable about 20 years ago. If a person is in to JDM cars, they are pretty likely to love S chassis. Below the most famous three, 90s RX7, Supra, and NSX, (I’m ignoring Skylines because they weren’t ever sold here during that period) they are one of the most desirable cars of the import era. A busted ass S chassis can pull more money than a clean EF Civic hatch or CRX. So while it might not be your scene, Thomas is not wrong about the status of these cars.
Did you just wake up from 30 years of stasis?
I was alive when it was new. No one seemed to care much about it back then. I knew it was popular with drifters, as Captain Muppet said, but that’s about it. As far as I could tell, they all just rusted away anonymously until that crowd discovered it. Does that elevate it to legendary status? I dunno. Notable, perhaps, but I wouldn’t go as far as legendary. Maybe you could write an epic tale about its heroic deeds like King Arthur or Eric the Viking and convince me.
I think we’re some of the olds on here as. I knew they were big with drifters once heavily modded and engines swapped and mostly because they were dirt cheap and simple RWD cars that were available at first (because nobody wanted them!), but they were unremarkable run-of-the-mill coupes when new in stock guise in the US. The engines were not powerful nor characterful and the looks were average at best.
Definitely an old. Not gonna lie. But I think that gives us some perspective that the yoots lack. A whole lot of cars that people seem to be going crazy over lately were regarded as lackluster and unremarkable when new. How they suddenly became legendary is baffling to me. Or maybe “legendary” is just a much higher bar to clear to me than it is to some.
Nostalgia for the things of one’s youth I kind of get, though (thankfully) rarely suffer from, but the oddest version to me is the kind of nostalgia for things that predate one’s own time, which is where I think much of this comes from. Like, my old Zs sat pretty cheap for a while—undervalued, IMO—but then they blew up (like most everything else, I suppose) to the point where I consider them to be overvalued and I read all this stuff about how amazing they were while sitting with furrowed brow wondering if any of these younger people writing this stuff actually drove one. Then again, now that I think of it, maybe they have driven them and what I saw as a lack of feel in the controls and disappointing handling in the early ’90s seems hardwired to the driver, raw, and entertaining in comparison to the overweight, isolated, anesthetized, nanny-ridden modern vehicles they’d be most familiar with.
This is the kind of perspective I’m talking about. Good point!
If I recall everyone only wanted the Prelude’s and Integra’s new at the time (I’m late Gen X) in this category. Maybe a Probe or MX6 because V6 power.
It was definitely a Honda world then. If anyone was looking at a Nissan, it was a 300ZX.
300ZX ftw.
I agree that the 240sx was never viewed as legendary. And I was in my teens when it was on sale.
Part of the problem was the version we got in North America was expensive compared to many other coupes and wasn’t all that fast given the 2.4L engine sourced from the Nissan Hardbody truck.
The vehicle everyone wanted from Nissan in the 1990 time frame was the then-all-new 300ZX and 300ZX twin turbo.
The 240SX was an afterthought by comparison.
And if you wanted an affordable coupe or sports car that had decent handling, a Miata was a better choice.
So was the Integra, Civic CRX, Ford Probe, Mazda MX-6, Mazda RX7, Eagle Talon/Mitsu Eclipse and a number of other vehicles.
There’s this foreign cartoon called initial D (I say like anyone other than a jobber drove one of these in it)
Why? Look at the numbers for the BRZ / 86. There’s not really much space in that market for another player.
I’m a long time Silvia fan. I had three S12s and an S13 with most things modified. I also had an FR-S. As little as I trust Subaru, I’m much more likely to buy another 86 than take a chance on a Nissan.
I had a UK market S12 Silvia Turbo and S13 200SX (with the standard CA18DET).
I dreamed of having an S15 Silvia for a long time, but scene tax pushed the prices way above GT86 prices, so I got one of those instead.
What else can I cross-shop to replace an 86? Nothing new. Miata? No roof and no rear seats at all.
A RWD coupe EV with slightly more room for rear passengers with actual lower legs and a hatchback could be a much more popular thing than the 86.
Today.
Who knows what the field looks like in 6 years. EVs aren’t always easy to modify for more power, so if your sports coupe is getting beaten by used Hyundais when new, it’s going to lose to them forever.
A big part of the 240SX was its potential, which was not fully realized from the factory. EVs don’t offer the same ability.
EVs can offer insane performance from the factory. I’d say there is little point adding more power to something that can already do 0-60 in 4 seconds.
Chassis tuning, more steering lock, LSD (or software features to simulate one), throttle pedal response curves and terrible styling choices could be things to mod. As standard it just needs to be cheap and not terrible and enthusiasts will love it.
Being Nissan though I imagine it will be at least a little terrible and not quite cheap enough.
More like it should weigh less than a Z and cost less than a Pathfinder.
The $11,400 BYD Seagull weighs abut 2,700 lbs, doesn’t use exotic materials, and would probably only need around 250 Wh/mile to do 70 mph on a U.S. highway with its 40 kWh pack.
If Nissan can start with a Cd value of an Infiniti G35 with aero package(~.26 Cd), and shave about 20% of that Cd value off by not needing a grille and able to have a smooth undertray, THEN cut frontal area/mass down by keeping the car slightly smaller than a 350Z or Leaf, 180-ish Wh/mile should be achievable in a sub-3,000 lb package with a 40-ish kWh battery pack, in a pure EV that could end up in the same price range as an ICE Subaru BRZ or Mazda Miata while being able to blow their doors off.
Stop trying to cram bloat into it. Make an affordable, long-range EV, by placing substance as more important than style. Go for less drag, and throw corporate styling fads to the wind. Less bells and whistles in favor of simplicity and mass reduction. emphasize performance over luxury, and don’t care if it cannibalizes more expensive and slower vehicles in the lineup, as it will still be its own niche.
If Nissan does this, they will be unique in the USA market, and will probably sell a crap ton of them, and maybe even have the 2nd most affordable EV available(next to the Leaf).
Get the genie out of the bottle, and watch as everyone else scrambles to try to catch up.
Regarding your estimate on the Seagull’s highway consumption, I’d say you’re spot on.
I DD a Renault K-ZE (aka Dacia Spring) in China, and at 110KMH (70mph, which happens to be its top speed) consumption is around 12-13kWh/100km, so thats around 4.8mi/kWh or 210Wh per mile. My car weighs abt 2200 pounds (970KG to be exact), so its significantly lighter than the Seagull, but it’s much less aerodynamic.
Just give us the IDx and be done with it!
Give me three different body panel colors, a blown single jungle KA, maxspeedingrod coilovers poorly installed, reps and one of them window banners with my cars oddly violent instagram name like “Black Death” or “Ghost Knife”. Then charge me 3x’s time is actually value, or give me death!
You forgot to pick your interior odor- Smoke, armpit, Axe, or vape.
Oh, I’m paying extra for the discharged Juul pods package
All of the above, plus an anime character print body pillow in the passenger seat.
I would love for this to happen but I cannot imagine it being done that would make getting-older enthusiasts (looks in mirror) happy. I had a S13 Coupe and a S14 Kouki and I loved them both. They were both mostly stock besides very minor things I did myself. I would very happily be a 50+ year old driving a S16 in 2030.
They’ll either rug-pull it completely, or just fuck it up. :/
Nissan jumping in against the 86 could be interesting. But I don’t think it will do well as an EV because of the weight penalty. Would be happy to be proven wrong though!
The weight penalty comes from having a bloated, feature-laden, drag-inducing vehicle. Being 1,000+ lbs heavier than a comparable ICE is not an intrinsic BEV trait. For a given amount of range, aerodynamic drag determines the size of your battery pack, and thus weight.
Case in point: The $11,400 BYD Seagull with a 40 kWh pack weighs 2,700 lbs, no exotic materials. The OG Tesla Roadster weighs less with a 53 kWh battery pack. The original GM EV1 had about 900 lbs of battery in it and weighed around 2,800 lbs.
Modern EVs available in the USA are heavy because that is how the industry designs them to be. On purpose.
Ok but a 40kWh pack does not get one very far, and in a sporty car that is designed to be pushed, you would need an EPA range of at least 200 miles to get a real world range of 100 when having fun with it. I don’t know what battery size is required for that, it would depend on many factors obviously. But comparing to the Seagull that would likely fail crash tests here and couldn’t be brought to market isn’t a very fair comparison. Same with the EV1. The Honda E (3300 lbs), Mini E (3000 lbs), and Fiat 500e (2950 lbs) are the most similar in that they are going for fun to drive, small and still reasonably light, but as they are all city cars, not canyon carvers, they can have lower range and still meet the need. The 500e has a 42 kWh pack, getting a 140 mile range but again that would not really work for a sports car.
The Aptera 2E could do close to 400 miles at 70 mph with a pack of that size.
Aerodynamic drag = inverse of range per kWh of battery driving normal on the highway
Mass = inverse of range per kWh of battery on a race track
EVs don’t come close to competing with ICE regarding distance in racing conditions. As load increases, ICEs generally see thermal efficiency increases. That is not the case for EVs, which are already broadly efficient over their entire operating range.
These 150 mile range city cars(500e), for the same size battery, could yield 50%+ more highway range if placed in a slippery body with half the drag.
A VW XL1, converted to pure EV, with a 42 kWh pack, probably could have approached 300 miles range at 70 mph on the highway, maybe 120 miles range holding 120 mph on the Autobahn. Throw a 420 kW peak drive system in it, and you have 6 minutes run time at full power demand. Although, since you won’t be flooring it 100% of the time even when racing, because of the need to hold speed in corners and also to brake(where regen can reclaim some of the lost kinetic energy), such a thing might make 2 complete laps around the Nurburgring Nordshleife driven balls-out, on one full charge. That’s just physics.
More batteries will yield diminishing returns on a track, because now you have to expend more energy to accelerate that mass up to speed, more energy stopping that mass, and for a given power output you lose acceleration, then the rest of the car has to become heavier to accommodate more power and more battery mass.
Designed correctly, I will contend that a 300 mile range @ 70 mph EV could end up weighing 100-200 lbs less than a comparable ICE powered car. 4,000 lb bloatware ICE Nissan Zs costing almost 6-figures need not be converted.
Ok but the Aptera is never going to have sports car handling. For that you need reasonably sticky tires and four wheels. A slippery body would go a long way for sure, and the hatchbacks I mentioned are all very un-aerodynamic. The XL1 could get the 300 range on super low rolling resistance tires, which are not fun.
That is always the biggest complaint I heard about the first gen BRZ, they put Prius tires on it to get better advertised MPGs, but they were not a good fit and once you put real tires on it the MPGs are totally fake.
I am not saying you need huge batteries, and I would prefer smaller ones in most EVs. A sports car needs to be able to have some fun though and skinny tires that have terrible traction is not my idea of fun. If you can get a car with 200 mile EPA range on fun tires on a ~40 kWh battery then sign me up! I don’t know enough about it to know if it’s possible, but I feel like that’s stretching current tech beyond realistic limits.
Th Aptera 2E was designed with 3 wheels to get around crash regulations. They’re a startup without sufficient funds. There’s no reason a 4-wheeled car couldn’t have similar or even better drag compared to the Aptera.
Not all performance tires induce high rolling resistance. The tires that came stock on the C5 Corvettes had the best of both worlds if a study I had seen was true with regard to coefficient of rolling resistance(the study was published by Greenseal circa 2003).
You think so? Fair enough. I don’t know anything about the C5 tires and am far too uneducated on all this, you know it way better than I do. I would love to see a Miata-esque EV with 200 mile range that is ~2500 lbs and still affordable!
What you would like to see was borderline doable in the late 1990s on batteries about 1/4 as energy dense by mass vs what exists today.
Interesting. I have seen electric conversions on miatas and MGs and the like and they all gain at least a couple hundred pounds of battery weight, and never get over 100 miles.
Look at the CdA values. Those are cars that need 300 Wh/mile to hold 70 mph.
Meanwhile, Reverend Gadget’s aero-modded Triumph GT6 conversion with an ADC 6.7″ series DC motor, Cafe Electric Zilla 1k controller, and a 180V 42AH pack of Exide Orbital lead acid batteries only needed 120 Wh/mile to cruise 60 mph on LA freeways.
Ok yeah that makes sense. Crazy how essential being slippery is for an EV
It matters for ICE fuel economy as well.
Consider the Dodge Intrepid ESX2, the Ford Prodigy, and the GM Precept. All had Cd values below 0.20, and all were midsized hybrid-ICE or diesel sedans that could exceed 70 mpg highway.
Those also used very low power, frugal engines. So it wasn’t just the Cd that made the difference, but true.
I average low 30s combined in my GR86, which is well above EPA, and I ditched the garbage stock tires (holy Athena were they abominable!) early on for HPAS. I noticed no appreciable difference at all in mileage, though maybe the torque of the bigger engine makes the difference or the gearing is better (I’m too lazy to look it up).
If that Aptera ever makes it to market it will be me and 1,357 other people who will actually buy them. They built it to pass NHTSA safety (which it doesn’t have to pass, not technically being a car), which is much less stringent than the constantly moving rating goal posts of crashworthiness and safety nannies of the IIHS tests that everyone builds their cars to meet because safety is what sells (largely to idiots who will then text while they drive, tailgate, and speed in heavy traffic). Much of that extra weight is required in the sense that a car needs to sell and that weight and bloat comes much from safety and safety is what sells. For the intended purpose to sell to the masses without turning people off while meeting packaging requirements and space demands, cars have gotten pretty aerodynamically efficient and they have an incentive to be so in the form of things like CAFE and emission standards. Yeah, maybe they could be a little better, but there’s a floor to how low they can get while meeting customer expectations and maintaining appeal to a wide audience. Toecutter is great, but seems to think glorified EV velomobiles could take over the entire market if only some automotive CEOs weren’t conspiring to prevent us all from seeing the light when—perhaps a few smaller things aside—the truth is: we are all the problem (except Toecutter—he has an actual electric trike he built himself, which I have nothing but admiration for).
IIRC, for a brief time in the late ’90s, the second gen was the only RWD Japanese sport coupe (so not counting pure sports cars like the Supra or RX7) sold in the U.S.?
Probably, but that’s a very specific bracket to be looking at. The Lexus SC300 was here for a while which probably counts as your sport coupe vs sports car, but that’s a very thin line separating the two.
“Keep it small, keep it light, keep it affordable, and keep it rear-wheel-drive”
Building a car in the modern era that adheres to even one (1) of these requirements is a nigh-impossibility, even for companies that aren’t currently teetering over the precipice, so I wouldn’t hold my breath.
For that exact reason it still is staggering we have both the ND Miata and a second generation 86/BRZ. Certainly can understand why we’re getting an ND3 instead of a new generation for a few years, but I’m certainly thankful we have any options at all.
And as a standalone platform! Toyota didn’t even do that at the Supra price and they can afford to throw money away. Nissan needed to use the old FM platform for the new Z, so this talk about a new platform for a cheaper car is absurd unless they’re going to share it with a family of vehicles, but that would mean it would be heavier than optimal because, like the FM platform, it would have to be designed for the volume sellers, which would be crossovers.
Dream Car, one of the only cars I’ve ever wanted to purchase and leave totally stock. an official Kids Heart Sil80.