Nissan Mulling Navara Nismo Flagship To Rival Against Ranger Raptor

Nissan is reportedly mulling plans to develop a Nismo-badged performance flagship variant of the next-gen Navara pick-up truck. 

Japanese automaker Nissan wants a bigger slice of the mid-sized pick-up truck market share, and it reckons the key lies in a new performance flagship fashioned similarly as the Ford Ranger Raptor. In fact, such plans was recently hinted by the automaker’s Australian execs recently.

Speaking with CarExpert.com, Nissan’s Chief Planning Officer Ivan Espinosa all but confirmed that the automaker is seriously considering a Nismo-braded performance special for the next-gen Navara. The exec also hinted such a special could be borne out of collaborations with partner companies.

This new flagship Navara Nismo could rival strongly against the Ford Ranger Raptor pictured.

“Well, this is also something that we are looking at, and you could imagine seeing something along those lines with the partners that we are working on that as well,” responded Espinosa to queries on the matter by CarExpert.com.

Espinosa further highlighted that local partnerships as a promising example too. “In Australia, it’s something where we’ve been doing very good business and customers are very happy with what we’re providing.”

The exec was of course highlighting the Warrior trims it offers in both the Navara 4x4 pick-up truck (pictured) and Patrol 4x4 SUV that Nissan presently markets in Australia. These rugged performance specials were developed through a collaboration between Nissan and specialist firm Premcar.

Presently, Nissan already markets a more rugged iteration of the Navara in Australia. Christened as the Warrior trimline, it was developed in collaboration with specialists Premcar.

Said partner could be the key towards developing a Navara Nismo that Nissan could potentially slot and position above the existing off-road-focused Navara Pro-4X guise. Moreover, like the Range Raptor rival, this supposed upcoming Navara Nismo could also gain a peppy powertrain to match.

All signs point towards this proposed Nismo-badged Navara adopting Nissan’s 3.5-litre V6 twin-turbo petrol mill primed in the aforementioned Patrol and US-only Armada SUV model. Outputting 425 HP and 699 NM, it can go head-to-head against the Ranger Raptor’s 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6.

What’s unclear here is if said V6 mill from the Patrol/Armada can be adapted into the Navara’s ladder-frame architecture. However, whilst acknowledging said mill’s primary application is said SUVs, Espinosa did add that “parts of that could be carried over to some future models.”

Would you fancy the idea of a Ranger Raptor-esque performance flagship flavour of the Navara? Share your thoughts in the comments below, as well as our social media spaces...

As part of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance, the next-gen Nissan Navara is expected to share its ladder-frame underpinnings, diesel and plug-in hybrid powertrain options with the Mitsubishi Triton.

Notably, Mitsubishi is also rumored to be developing its own flagship version of the Triton with the Ralliart badge, and this could potentially borrow Nissan’s V6 powertrain to up the ante.