The new Nissan Titan Warrior Concept is one mean pick up truck



The 2016 North American International Auto Show in Detroit is a place where the big gets bigger. Take for example the Nissan Titan XD. Now I know what you must be thinking, what in the world is a Nissan Titan? Could I walk into the nearest Tan Chong dealership and get one? The answer is unfortunate, for the car in question is native to the North American market only.

Should you have the opportunity to behold one before your own eyes, you’d immediately be taken aback by just the sheer size of this thing. In the US, this is called a full-sized pick up truck whereas the ones we get over here are called mid-size pick-ups. Back to the Titan though, because the Ford F-150 and its stablemates have been the best sellers in North America for the past millennium, it makes sense that Nissan (and other manufacturers alike) do well to imitate The Blue Oval in hopes of bagging market share. This Titan Warrior Concept on the other hand, plays skip rope with that line of thinking.2016-Nissan-Titan-Warrior-Concept-NAIAS-12

When it comes to describing the sheer looks of this thing, words such as badass just doesn’t do it justice, somehow. This Titan Warrior is one mean mothertrucker (as Nissan would put it) especially with all the visual mods that Nissan North America has done to it. Starting with the front end, of which the designers have drawn inspirations from battle suit of armours worn by warriors of yesteryear. Apart from that, the headlamps – especially the DRLs – have the T-Titan logo signature which work very well to accentuate the raw look of this Dakar-inspired conqueror.

Speaking of old desert racers of Dakar fame, the roof-mounted spot lights are now replaced with a pair of low-profile LED units that illuminate the way forward should the going get tough. Not only that but, with keeping with the tradition over at Nissan, the Titan Warrior features something its local cousin the Navara NP300 sports too, a tail gate spoiler which as we all are aware helps with and improves aerodynamics. Finishing off the look of the Titan Warrior Concept is the paint job which we have to say, is drop dead gorgeous. Nissan calls it a matte gun-metal finish.2016-Nissan-Titan-Warrior-Concept-NAIAS-11

On the inside however, it seems to be less Dakar Rally spec and more San Diego Monday morning which means that the centre console does not have a couple bottles of Nitrous Oxide for getting you down town quicker. But rather, it’s a spot for you to holster your Starbucks drive-thru. The Titan Warrior in this respect, comes into its home element of being an urban cruiser that’s cool enough to pick the kids up from school with. Even the steering wheel is milled from aluminium just so you won’t forget how far out-of-this-world this concept truck really is.

But what’s the point in all that style but no substance to boot? Nissan is way ahead of of you on that point. Although Nissan hasn’t been very forthcoming with what sort of mods have been done under the hood, we do know that it features a Cummins-sourced 5.0-liter V8 turbo diesel lump that’s mated to a heavy-duty six-speed Aisin automatic transmission that’ll  chuck out over 300 horses and well over 700 Nm of torque. This means that the Titan Warrior could tow loads of up to a couple of tonnes behind the tail gate!2016-Nissan-Titan-Warrior-Concept-NAIAS-20

Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. and Chairman, Nissan North America, Jose Muñoz said, “While Nissan still has many roads and trails to travel as we continue to launch additional production versions of our bold new TITAN, this new TITAN Warrior Concept gives an important signal to American truck enthusiasts that our vision for exploring new boundaries remains strong.”


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