Nissan Titan chances boosted for Australia

Nissan Australia’s chances of getting its hands on the full-size Nissan Titan pick-up truck have been boosted by a reorganisation of global reporting structures.

Currently only built in left-hand drive in the US for the North American market, the Chevrolet Silverado, RAM and Ford F-150 rival has been on Nissan’s local wish-list for more than two years.

Gaining supply ex-factory in right-hand drive or via a local conversion job – as per the Silverado and RAM work done by the Walkinshaw Group – have both been on the agenda, but the global pandemic has understandably stalled the project in 2020.

“It has absolutely not moved in about six months now,” Nissan Australia managing director Stephen Lester confirmed. “We have not picked it up again in earnest since that time.”

But a streamlined global management structure announced on October 1 as part of the NEXT transformation plan is about to reignite the Titan discussion.

Previously, the Nissan world was split into seven regions and Australia was part of the small (about 275,000 sales per annum) Asia & Oceania (A&O) region headquartered in Thailand.

It has now been included in the newly-created Africa, Middle East, India, Europe and Oceania (AMIEO) division, which has its HQ in Dubai.

Being part of a region with more than one million sales per annum and fellow pick-up markets South Africa and the Middle East can only help Australia’s case, Lester argued.

“Now that we have done the regional transition we hope with alignment just back to our Middle East colleagues that we have got a little bit more of a formidable group,” he said.

“One of the challenges we had from an A&O perspective was there was nobody with us.

“It’s not that our A&O region chairman wasn’t supportive, he was supportive, but it’s small volume so it’s tough to get the market voice. It’s not a massive number to come through.

“Now with the group that we’ve got in our new region there’s potential to still pick that (Titan) up.”

Facelifted and upgraded earlier this year, the 2020 Nissan Titan gets a new nine-speed automatic transmission (replacing a seven-speeder) hooked up to the same 5.6-litre petrol V8 as seen in the Nissan Patrol.

It produces 298kW, which is around double the power output of the most popular turbo-diesel dual-cabs on sale in Australia, but there's no V8 diesel engine anymore.

Like its chief rivals, the payload of some model variants is less than a tonne but the Nissan Titan's physical size and five-tonne towing capacity (thanks to 560Nm of torque) is attractive to the industrial, farming, boating and equestrian sectors.

Lester says the move into AMIEO won’t change Nissan Australia’s vehicle manufacturing sources, but it does mean it’s operating in a new product planning environment.

“That’s where we probably belong from a product standpoint rather than ASEAN or Japan,” said Lester. “This is very good for us.”

Lester said he hadn’t opened up specific dialogue within the AMIEO region about Titan but is opted to make a pitch in the near future.

“When you think about the South African market, when you think potentially about the Middle East … there are probably more markets that (Titan) could be applicable for,” he said.

“Perhaps there is a bigger business case that can be put together to support it.”