Nissan Titan still on Aussie agenda

The Mississippi-made Nissan Titan remains wanted Down Under – by both fans of full-size V8 pick-ups and Nissan Australia itself.

The Nissan Titan would be a compelling hero ute in a booming market segment for Nissan Australia, which previously said the best chance of it being officially available here is a local right-hand drive conversion program similar to those behind the RAM and Silverado trucks.

Nissan Australia chief Stephen Lester this week told carsales that was still the case, but getting the deal done "will take some time".

He wouldn’t be drawn on how long it will be before we see the Nissan Titan officially on sale in Australia or, by extension, whether Aussies have to wait for the next-generation model due around 2025.

If the latter is the case, the Titan may not be rolling into local Nissan showrooms until later this decade.

The first-generation Nissan Titan had a 13-year life cycle, spanning 2003 and 2015. By that measure, the current model is only entering middle age.

But Nissan Australia has not given up on putting the petrol V8-powered ute on local roads, where it would be the Japanese brand’s first direct rival for the RAM 1500 and Chevrolet Silverado 1500.

Bucking a 20 per cent market decline in the same period, RAM Trucks Australia sold almost 800 utes to April this year (up 27 per cent on 2019) and Toyota Australia and Ford Australia are keen to import the next-generation Tundra and F-150, both of which are due to appear by next year.

If either pick-up becomes a global model produced in RHD ex-factory, negating tens of thousands of dollars in Australian development and ‘remanufacturing’, they would likely dominate the market with unrivalled pricing.

"My position, regardless of ultimately where the company decides to leave us, is that we would be very supportive [to bring the Titan to Australia]," said Lester.

"No question about that," stated Lester. "We have the infrastructure [in Australia] and we've got a tremendous amount of distance to travel, but we also have an appetite for performance vehicles that can tow the toys.

"I've been banging on about this for long enough. People are tired of probably hearing about it. It's understandable, but I think they'd like to see some action, which I would too, and [customer demand] conditions haven't changed in Australia on that standpoint."

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 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.

Growing up in Ontario, Canada, Lester is no stranger to full-size US pick-up trucks and hopes that having Nissan’s global COO Ashwani Gupta in his corner will help convince the company to green-light the project.

"If we go back to previous discussions with Ashwani, who is now the COO, there was a lot of enthusiasm at that time around this opportunity. So we hope that with him in that role, we can continue to work together and make this come to life," said Lester.

Before his promotion, Gupta was the global boss of light commercial vehicle development for the Renault Nissan alliance and he previously told Aussie reporters that he was "…studying when and how" to get the Titan to Australia.

But the 'when' appears to be blowing out and it seems the 'how' may be in limbo now too.

The Nissan Navara Warrior is the brand's current hero ute and features local suspension and body mods engineered and installed by Melbourne-based outfit Premcar.

The Nissan Australia boss poured cold water on the widely-held view that the current alliance with Premcar would automatically see it also selected by Nissan to 'remanufacture' the Titan the for local market.

"There's no decision on whether Premcar would do it; there's no plan that that is the deal by any stretch," he stated.

"The stage that we're still at is the global engineering agreement to be allowed or permitted to use a Nissan in a right-hand drive conversion and sell it as a Nissan Australia-sold vehicle.

"That is a process which is going to take some time," he conceded, noting that the COVID-19 pandemic is further complicating the local Titan business plan.