Nissan will unveil a pickup-based SUV next year to rival the likes of the Toyota Fortuner.
Set to make its world premiere at the Beijing motor show in April, the SUV will arrive in Thai showrooms toward the end of 2018. The name of the model is still unknown but its direct predecessor was called Pathfinder.
Although Nissan has built previous iterations of an SUV based on a pickup workhorse, it has never sold a contemporary one in Thailand where such vehicles still enjoy small preferential excise tax over car-based SUVs with conventional powertrain technologies.
Sources say the new SUV will have a three-row seating matrix and packaging to effectively match the Fortuner, as well as the Chevrolet Trailblazer, Ford Everest, Isuzu MU-X and Mitsubishi Pajero Sport.
Since it will be based around the technical credentials of today’s Navara NP300 pickup, the mid-size SUV will come with a traditional chassis-on-frame body albeit a more modern rear coil and multi-link suspension.
The engine is likely to be the new 2.3-litre twin-turbo four-cylinder diesel producing 190hp and 450Nm of torque hooked up to the Navara’s seven-speed automatic. Expect both four- and rear-wheel drive versions to be offered.
Although the Thai-spec Navara still employs the older 2.5-litre diesel-turbo, the smaller but more powerful 2.3-litre variant has already seen the light of the day in the pickup sold in some other world markets.
The pickup-based SUV will be positioned as a rugged-looking off-roader to distinguish itself from the car-based X-Trail, which is currently being sold as a seven-seater to rival the Honda CR-V. The X-Trail is also available with a petrol-electric hybrid but just in five-seat form.
Such a strategy will leave Mazda as the only major pickup player to not have an SUV derivative of its BT-50. Top executives told the Thai media in Tokyo this week that there’s no plan of building an SUV off the next-gen pickup, which is being developed together with Isuzu albeit with proprietary design of each brand.
