During its Nissan Vision presentation on April 14 in Japan, Nissan announced that its epic Skyline sports car would ride again. The new car would be a "Heartbeat" model for the automaker, delivering performance and driver-focus. The Skyline was an icon for a generation who learned about it from Gran Turismo, but, it seemed once again, it wasn't destined to come to America. But what about bringing it to America as an Infiniti with a different name? It's been done before. And it's likely happening again. CEO Sees 'Skyline Attributes' Coming To US Nissan At a roundtable at Nissan's announcement of the new Skyline, along with the new Xterra and Nissan's business plan for the next few years, a journalist asked if the Skyline could come to the US with an Infiniti badge. If Skyline and GT-R are still synonymous to you, then that question might be confusing. But the last generation Nissan Skyline was the car sold in the US as the Infiniti Q50, and under that lens it starts to make more sense.Curiously, Nissan CEO Ivan Espinosa made two conflicting statements. "I don't think we will comment on that," he started, before proceeding to immediately comment on that."We would imagine the attributes of Skyline coming strongly to North America. We will define a bit later on, how will this be coming, but you can, you can imagine the car will be, of course, coming to the US."- Ivan Espinosa, Nissan CEOSo there you have it. A car with the attributes of the Skyline will be coming to the US. But the Skyline itself won't. With Nissan looking to slash its global lineup of cars, it would be very strange to have two completely different sports sedans in the same size class.Infiniti has already confirmed to CarBuzz that it is building a new high-performance sports sedan. The company is said to have told dealers that it would be a new sedan with a rear-drive chassis and a manual transmission. The 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 from the Nissan Z is the likely engine, and it makes 400 horsepower in that car.It could even show up soon, on an automotive timeline. In the earlier announcement, Nissan said that there would be three new Infiniti models on sale by 2028. Since the primary focus for Infiniti is the US, all three are almost certain to go on sale here. Skyline And Infiniti Have Had A Complicated Relationship Infiniti With the Skyline, Nissan and Infiniti have sold two versions of the same thing dating back to 2001. Before that, Skyline – a nameplate going back to 1957 – was a very minimal coupe and sedan, with performance levels going from a basic 153-horsepower 2.0-liter I6 to the 276-hp (with a wink) twin-turbo Skyline GT-R.The 11th-generation Skyline was a larger, softer car. It was still a sports sedan, but it didn't have an inline-six engine, which was a first for the model. The high-performance GT-R was no longer a trim level, but instead it was a whole new model on its own.That Skyline was the first to come to the US, but it was an Infiniti. TheG35 sedan and coupe, with the latter becoming the G37 for 2008 with a 3.7-liter V6 instead of the 3.5. In what must be an effort to be as confusing as possible, Infiniti gave the coupe and sedan a shotgun blast of names over the years, with it finally leaving the market as the Q60 coupe in 2022 and the Q50 sedan in 2024.Espinosa made it clear a car with Skyline attributes was coming to the US. Infiniti has made it clear it is getting a new sports sedan. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to put two and two together, especially with Nissan's cost-cutting plans. We're expecting the new Skyline as an Infiniti within two to three years, though there is still some speculation as to exactly when it will arrive.
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