Nissan has just unveiled the all-new fourth-generation Navara, but if it looks a little familiar, don’t worry, your eyes are not playing tricks. Indeed, the Navara has gone from being its own model to now a reskinned Mitsubishi Triton for its fourth-generation, and thus shares much more than just similar looks to its Japanese cousin.
Platform sharing isn’t anything new, especially in the pickup world – see: Isuzu D-Max/Mazda BT-50, Ford Ranger/Volkswagen Amarok, or even the Navara/Mercedes-Benz X-Class way back when. As both Nissan and Mitsubishi are part of an alliance together with Renault, it’s expected for the two to develop certain models together – but what’s surprising here is that Nissan did not do much at all to differentiate the Navara, even in looks.
Even with the new front fascia, you’ll find many carry-over design elements, including most of the grille, and even the two-tier headlights design, which to be fair does have a different housing and a reworked light signature. The squared-off wheel arches and character lines on the sides are completely identical, and so is the rear, save for a different tail-light signature and the large ‘NAVARA’ word mark plastered on the tailgate.
And it’s even more apparent inside, with the only changes here seemingly limited to just the new Nissan emblems. The fourth-generation model here adopts the same nine-inch infotainment display atop the dashboard, the same steering wheel design, and even the same buttons and dials on the centre console. But if you spring for the PRO-4X variant, you do get some additional orange accents throughout, so there’s that…
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The all-new fourth-generation Nissan Navara will be offered solely in the double-cab body style, as the company says that over 90% of customers for that in the outgoing model. Over in the Australia and New Zealand markets, where the model will go on sale in the first quarter of next year, it’ll be offered with a 2.4-litre inline-four turbodiesel engine, making 204 hp and 470 Nm of torque.
That, if you recall, is the more powerful variant of the engine, reserved on the Triton to only the range-topping Athlete variant. Here, it’s paired to a six-speed automatic gearbox alongside a four-wheel drive system that, depending on variant, will get the Super 4WD full-time 4WD set up – a first for the nameplate.
Given its shared bones with the Triton, the all-new fourth-generation Nissan Navara has also now adopted a leaf spring set up for its rear suspension, instead of the unusual coil springs found in the outgoing third-gen model.
Nevertheless, the suspension here has been specifically tuned for Oceania roads by Premcar, an Automotive engineering firm based in Australia. It’s culminated from over 12 months of testing across 18,500 km, with 137 specific damper codes and over 550 internal shims being evaluated. The result is a specific damper tuning for the Nissan Navara, which will be different to the Triton. Still, towing capacity and gross vehicle mass remains unchanged, though.
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