#NissanFrontier

There are certain categories of discarded vehicles that I search for before all others during my junkyard travels. French cars and extreme-high-mile machinery are on my list, of course, plus Sawzall roadsters/ pickups, art cars and oddball special editions. But my favorite Junkyard Finds are obscure examples of what-could-they-have-been-thinking badge engineering, and today's truck has lived atop my wish list for nearly 15 years.

The Nissan Frontier finally got the overhaul it needed in 2022 and has received generally positive reviews despite the fact that it’s not as refined or advanced as its rivals. As it stares down a 2024 model year in which all of its competitors are newer and more attractive, the Frontier is getting a new Hardbody Edition that piles on nostalgia and a few feature upgrades to some trims. Nissan also released pricing, which starts at a reasonable $29,770 before destination and taxes.

This one is for the Tennessee fan in your life. This 2000 Nissan Frontier was, of course, built in the Volunteer State, and it's festooned with Tennessee stickers and a paint job that screams "Rocky Top".

Nissan's Frontier didn't change much from 2005 until 2021. The D40 generation just quietly soldiered on forever until it was redone for 2022.

As you know by now, the 2022 Nissan Frontier is all new.

I haven’t yet gotten my hands on one, and nor has, it appears, most of the rest of the automotive press. But I did get to sample one of the last-gen trucks before it moved into the dustbin of history.

As Nissan flings an old truck with a shiny new powertrain at midsize truck buyers, a top-down replacement waits in the wings.

To say a successor for the Frontier has been a long time coming would be the ultimate understatement. The current body has soldiered on since late 2004, when the second-generation truck appeared as a 2005 model. You author has gone through six cars since that long-ago year.

But the wait’s nearly over. And there’s even something to look at.

Nissan’s new 4-year plan, despite aiming for efficiency and value, doesn’t leave sporty driving in the dustbin of history. Sports cars still exist as one of the automaker’s core products, and the very long awaited next-generation Z will be among that global cohort.

On the volume side of things, the brand’s compact and midsize crossovers are due for a rejuvenation, along with Nissan’s midsize pickup, which last gained a new body during the Bush administration.

This still-an-actual-midsizer from Nissan has been profiled more than once during the Ace of Base series, managing to pull off wins thanks to a fix-it-with-a-hammer powertrain and rock-bottom price tag.

Things are different for 2020. Despite wearing last year’s clothes (to be truthful, those clothes are over a decade old), the Frontier has a new power team under its hood. Accompanying this is, of course, a higher price tag. Can this combination of old school looks and new school guts still peg the Ace of Base meter?

Nissan isn’t ready to discuss the 2021 Frontier just yet, but the brand has set pricing for the 2020 version of its aging midsize pickup.

If you’re cool with two-wheel drive and a King Cab model, you can get in the door for $26,790.

It was one of the more interesting debuts of this year’s pandemic-constrained spring auto show season: The 2020 Nissan Frontier, which heralds the fully revamped 2021 Frontier by donning that yet unseen midsize pickup’s new powertrain. Old truck, new engine and transmission.

Details of the first all-new Frontier in the better part of two decades remain scarce, but a report out Thursday suggests a big price increase is in the works.

That headline comes with an asterisk, as the fuel economy gains expected from the 2020 Nissan Frontier are only applicable if you planned on buying a V6 model. The four-cylinder Frontier is dead for ’20, as is the manual transmission.

While the Environmental Protection Agency hasn’t yet bestowed MPG figures on the “new” truck (same body, new powertrain), Nissan has come clean with estimates.

The 2020 Nissan Frontier unveiled ahead of the Chicago Auto Show Wednesday night looks an awful lot like a 2019 model, to say nothing of the fourteen years of Frontiers that came before, but there’s something new lurking under the hood.

In an unusual move, Nissan has decided to debut the powertrain of the Frontier’s long-awaited midsize successor in the newest current-generation model. The last current-gen model, to put it another way.

With the new engine upgrade comes a considerable boost in horsepower and four additional forward gears.

“Change is the only constant in life,” said the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who probably didn’t envision the remarkable lifespan of the second-generation Nissan Frontier.

Debuting in 2004 as a 2005 model, the second-gen Frontier soldiers on as a rugged and more affordable option in the growing midsize field. But it’s this growing field that belatedly spurred Nissan into action. A new Frontier is on the way, sources claim, bearing improvements demanded of it by a populace that now has access to things like the Ford Ranger.

The old adage of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” applies to household plumbing, your kid’s Lego creations, and the squeaking ventilation fan in my Dodge Charger. It also applies to the Nissan Frontier pickup, apparently.

Seriously. Even though this thing is almost old enough to vote, Nissan is selling them by the boatload.

Just ahead of the launch of a new Ford Ranger, production of which began earlier this month, midsize trucks’ share of the overall U.S. pickup truck market is up to a respectable nine-year high.

Thanks to significant year-over-year improvements from the two top sellers in the segment plus meaningful increases from the third and fourth-ranked midsize pickups, category-wide volume has grown by more than 60,000 units during the first nine months of 2018. Compared with the same period in 2017, volume in the much larger full-size pickup truck segment hasn’t even grown by half that much.

If you’re a pickup truck buyer, you remain far more likely to acquire a full-size F-150, Silverado, Ram, Sierra, Tundra, or Titan than a Tacoma, Colorado, Frontier, Canyon, or Ridgeline. But the slice of the pie afforded to the five-strong midsize sector is above 18 percent for the first time since 2009.

Could the new Ford Ranger push midsize trucks over the one-fifth mark for the first time since 2006?