Nissan Australia has announced that the iconic Bayside Blue paint, synonymous with the R34 GT-R will be added to the 2025 Nissan Z colour palette.
Following its introduction overseas in March 2025, Nissan Australia has confirmed that the Nissan Z will be available with Bayside Blue as one of its colour options.
While the addition of a new paint shade wouldn’t normally garner attention, Nissan has reached into its back catalogue of colours and pulled out one of its more iconic shades.
Best known as the hero colour for the R34-generation Skyline GT-R, Bayside Blue takes its name from Tokyo’s Shuto Expressway Bayshore Route – a stretch of road intrinsically linked to 1990s Japanese car culture.
The Bayshore Route became the setting for a number of unofficial top speed challenges from Japanese tuning firms, and has featured in the Gran Turismo video game franchise.
Nissan’s backstory on Bayside Blue describes the colour as an evolution of Champion Blue, from the 1995 R33 Skyline GT-R LM, a road-registerable homage to Nissan’s Le Mans race cars.
Nissan’s Advance Design Department, inspired by the popularity of Champion Blue, evolved a brighter, more vivid shade for the R34 with a much more noticeable colour shift in direct sunlight.
Other new colours joining the Nissan Z range are Ivory Pearl with a Super Black roof, and Plasma Red with a Super Black roof.
Nissan is ring fencing Bayside Blue somewhat, making the colour available as a single tone shade with no black roof option and limiting it to the Nissan Z only, and not offering it on the Z Nismo.
Ivory Pearl and Plasma Red, meanwhile, will be available on both the Z and Z Nismo.
The Nissan Z is now offered in seven shades, with the existing Black Diamond Metallic, Gun Metallic, Rosewood Metallic and Brilliant Silver with Super Black Roof.
Over its lifespan, the Z has retired shades like Ikauchi Yellow, Everest White with Super Black, New Site Orange, Boulder Grey with Super Black, Passion Red, and Seiran Blue with Super Black.
The Nismo Z adds its new shades alongside continuing Black Diamond Metallic, Brilliant Silver with Super Black Roof, and Slate Grey with Super Black Roof – the latter being a Nismo exclusive.
Kez Casey migrated from behind spare parts counters to writing about cars over ten years ago. Raised by a family of automotive workers, Kez grew up in workshops and panel shops before making the switch to reviews and road tests for The Motor Report, Drive and CarAdvice.
