Next-gen Nissan Patrol design underway

Nissan’s global product planning chief has confirmed the Patrol has a future.

Speaking as part of the rollout of the Z Proto, Ivan Espinosa, Nissan’s senior vice-president of global product planning, confirmed development of the next generation of the upper-large SUV was underway.

According to Espinosa, Nissan has entered the design phase of the vehicle that will be the seventh-generation Patrol.

And though the company has adopted a quasi-retro approach with its seventh-generation Z sports car, as previewed by the near-production Z Proto, the jury is out on the look for the next-generation, body-on-frame off-roader.

Speaking in a roundtable for the new Z Proto, Espinosa reinforced Patrol’s status as one of Nissan’s three brand icons – the others being Z and GT-R.

He also confided that the design studies for the next-generation Patrol were underway but that the theme for the new vehicle was far from set.

“We’re starting to work on the next one [Patrol] now and, same as with Z, there’s an interesting array of options and avenues we’re exploring [for the design],” Espinosa revealed.

The current sixth-generation Y62 Patrol was launched in 2010, was facelifted in 2014 and has been tweaked again recently.

A retro Patrol would follow trends set by Ford with its new Bronco, Land Rover with the latest Defender and new off-road entrant INEOS with its debutante, the Grenadier.

“There’s always the debate of whether we push it hard into the future or we do a balance [of old and new]. There’s always this tension between our planners and designers,” Espinosa stated.

“For now, everything is out there. We might do something either very futuristic. But you could think of doing something futuristic but, at the same time, you keep some of the iconic elements of the original Patrol [60] ... The round ‘eyes’, the very straight lines at the front.

“It’s what we’re now massaging around,” he said.