To say we love the Italdesign GT-R 50 would be a severe example of an understatement. It takes all the good things the GT-R has to offer (which is like 99.9% of the car) and rearranges them in a futuristic-looking package that’s hard to beat by anything else the supercar world has to offer today.

Italdesign’s work, however, will not have a say in the design of the future GT-R. There will be a new Godzilla at some point, have no doubt, but Nissan is taking its time with it. Well, here’s some motivation: why don’t they make it mid-engined, so it can look like this rendering we stumbled upon.

Dear Nissan…

Since its debut back in 2007, the R35 GT-R has been receiving subtle updates and tweaks along the way. Nissan surely took care of its flagship, although we know, you know, and Nissan knows that this won’t hold for too long, because the fact is, the GT-R is getting older and that can’t be denied. It’s as simple as that.

Godzilla’s current top-spec variant is the 2020 GT-R Nismo, which packs the same iconic, hand-built V-6 tuned to produce 600 horsepower (the non-Nismo GT-R cranks out 565 horsepower) and 481 pound-feet of torque (instead of the 467 pound-feet of torque in the base GT-R).

The GT-R, just like the Nissan Skyline, has always been a front-engined car. But what if that changed? Chevrolet did it with the Corvette C8, so why can’t we dream about a mid-engine Godzilla? Not that there’s something wrong with the current layout, but it could look like this:

It uses a lot of Italdesign GT-R 50 styling cues, especially for the front end. Look closer and you’ll surely recognize the headlights, the hood with the triangular air inlets, and the gaping grille. The novelty comes from what happens from the windshield towards the back, where the mid-engine arrangement makes the rendering look a lot like the Audi R8. That, of course, can only be a good thing.

Speaking of the next-gen Nissan GT-R, a report dating back to October 2019 brought us the good news: Nissan is committed to building a new-gen GT-R, which will also be joined by a successor for the 370Z sports car, which is also pretty long in the tooth. In an interview for Autocar, Nissan product planning boss Mr. Ivan Espinosa said that the two models are “at the heart of Nissan and we are actively looking at and working on them” and that we can “expect something soon.”

Hopefully, Mr. Espinosa is not referring to yet another special edition. And while it most likely won’t be a switch to a mid-engine layout, the prospect of a next-gen GT-R happening is already making us jump for joy.