#NissanTitan

(In the interest of providing readers with all the news they can use, we sometimes tap sister publications when an article attracts our interest. In this piece by Matthew Guy, published by Off-Road.com, our in-house truck lover tries to find out when Nissan’s promised six-cylinder Titan will finally make its appearance.

Nissan has been doing a good job getting back into the full-sized truck game, rolling out various cab and bed configurations for the Titan along with an array of trim levels. There’s still one thing missing, though – a V6 engine.

Right now, truck customers walking into a Nissan showroom are limited to a single engine in the half-ton Titan. The 5.6-liter Endurance V8 is a great motor, cranking out nearly 400 horsepower and an equal amount of torque and allowing drivers to tow nearly 10,000 lbs, but not everyone needs that hauling capability.

In a year of great political transition, there was also much change afoot at The Truth About Cars and more than a few alterations made in the way my life intersects with the automotive industry.

2017 was crazy. Yet midst all of the external upheaval (Trump, TTAC, Apple skipping the iPhone 9, the launch of a new Honda Odyssey) and an array of internal disorder (GoodCarBadCar’s acquisition, a move to rural Prince Edward Island, Miata purchase, new job) there was at least one constant.

I drove a ton of cars. Many tons of cars, to be more accurate.

America loves its pickup trucks, evidenced by a segment that’s increased nearly 5 percent compared to the same time last year.

Sure, many trucks across the nation haul nothing but air in their beds, but more than a few actually work for a living. Nissan is attempting to lure both parties into its showrooms by adding a couple of new option packages to its trucks – one for work and one for play.

In terms of monthly U.S. sales, Nissan’s line of Titan pickups ended September in the number nine spot, ahead of the midsize GMC Canyon but behind its own paleolithic Frontier. While the 3,773 Titan and Titan XDs sold last month represent a tiny fraction of the 82,302 Ford F-Series models sold in the same time frame, it’s still a 52-percent increase from the same month in 2016.

Year-to-date, however, Titan sales are up 224 percent in the United States. That’s enough to get Nissan thinking about the pickup’s potential in markets not dominated by tried-and-true nameplates from the Detroit Three.

It seems Nissan’s planning to seize some ground for itself on fertile — but traditionally unfriendly — terrain. Looking back, the looming push was obvious.

Nissan USA has priced the 2017 Nissan Titan King Cab from $33,745; or $36,775 with four-wheel drive.

In King Cab format — aka extended cab — only the three entry-level trims make it out of the Titan’s Canton, Mississippi assembly plant: S, SV, Pro-4X. The SL and Platinum Reserve are, ahem, reserved for Crew Cabs.

While General Motors’ full-size truck twins, the Ram 1500, and the Toyota Tundra have all switched to conventional front-hinged door configurations for their mid-level cab format, Nissan is sticking with the bodystyle utilized by the best-selling truck in America: Ford’s F-150.

But the configuration may not matter. With savings of just $2,180-$2,680 compared with the bigger Nissan four-door, it won’t be easy to convince buyers to give up their crew cab desires.

After improving in 11 consecutive months, U.S. sales of pickup trucks declined 4 percent in April 2017.

8 of the 11 truck nameplates on offer in America sold less often in April 2017 than in April 2016, causing declines in both the dominant full-size pickup truck sector and in the until-this-year burgeoning midsize category.

One month does not a trend make, but April’s downturn didn’t represent the first batch of evidence suggesting a forthcoming pickup truck sales slowdown.

Granted, not all trucks are heading in the same direction.

Nissan Titan sales quadrupled in April 2017.

By broadening its lineup, rethinking the dealer approach, and focusing on prime markets, Nissan intends to increase its Titan pickup truck’s share of America’s full-size market to 5 percent.

5 percent. One in twenty trucks. One Titan for every 19 Ford F-Series, Chevrolet Silverado, Ram P/U, GMC Sierra, and Toyota Tundra.

That doesn’t sound so crazy, does it?

Nah, at least until you realize that in 2016, Nissan sold fewer than 22,000 Titans, or slightly less than 1 percent market share.

In 1977, Nissan released the revolutionary King Cab option for the Datsun 620 pickup, which opened up 10 extra inches of space behind the front row of seats for people or stuff.

Forty years later, Nissan has revealed the new King Cab for the Titan and Titan XD, joining the Crew Cab and Single Cab options to round out the product line.

Interestingly, the Titan and Titan XD King Cab is offered with a rear-seat delete option, giving extra cargo space behind the front row for the coveted work-truck market.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s small overlap crash test — the bane of every automaker’s existence — has prevented another pickup from achieving high marks.

This time, it’s the 2017 Nissan Titan — a full-size pickup struggling to stand apart from its domestic competition after recently undergoing its first redesign in 13 years.

In IIHS testing, the Titan crew cab, like many of its rivals, folded under pressure during the small overlap test. That keeps the truck out of the running for an ad-worthy Top Safety Pick rating.

To beat the establishment at the establishment’s game, one needs either to employ a high degree of anti-establishmentarianism or prove to be obviously superior than the establishment.

Recognizing that the establishment is entrenched, with six Detroit brand pickup truck nameplates earning better than four out of every five pickup truck sales in America, two pickup trucks launched in 2016 with markedly different approaches.

Honda, quite evidently, does not believe the world’s eighth-largest automaker can endure a head-on collision with the Ford F-150, Ram 1500, Chevrolet Silverado, and GMC Sierra. The Ridgeline is still a unibody pickup with a V6 engine, a 5,000-pound towing capacity, and a trunk under the bed. Put Honda down in the anti-establishment column.

Nissan, however, clearly wants to be part of the establishment. The second-generation Nissan Titan approaches Detroit’s pickups with ostentatious design, a rumbling V8, full-size dimensions, and a new chrome-laden top-trim level. But remember, Nissan can’t merely match the best trucks — the Titan must demonstrate indisputable superiority.

America’s pickup truck market exploded with significant year-over-year growth in November 2016. After the U.S. auto industry reported three consecutive months of decline through the end of October, auto sales jumped 4 percent in November, year-over-year.

Pickup trucks were responsible for half of the industry’s growth last month.

All 11 truck nameplates on offer in the United States — from the Chevrolet Silverado that posted a modest 0.6-percent uptick to the Honda Ridgeline that shot up 115,367 percent — got in on the action.

Even the Nissan Titan.

It’s a stereotype more threadbare than a pair of old chaps, but just like 72-ounce steaks, Stetson hats, and the God-given right to poke bullet holes in road signs, it’s no exaggeration: Texas likes its trucks.

Pickups account for roughly a quarter of the state’s new-vehicle sales, counting for a remarkable 20 percent of the nation’s truck market. Plying the state’s ever-expanding highway network, gearheads like us can’t help but notice rows upon rows of pickup trucks, parked as they are on both stagnant Dallas freeways and dealer lots.

It’s no wonder then that pickup truck manufacturers market these trucks specifically to Texans.

Nissan’s second-generation Titan arrives in crew cab, V8 form with a U.S. base price of $35,975, including $1,195 for destination and handling.

A terribly long run for Nissan’s first full-size pickup truck effort resulted in only 471,242 U.S. sales between 2002 and 2015, roughly the total number of Ford F-Series pickups sold every seven months. Nissan has forged a unique strategy for the Titan’s relaunch, with the heavier-duty — though not quite Heavy Duty — Titan XD already on the market with a 310-horsepower Cummins 5.0-liter V8 diesel powerplant.

Now the regular-duty 2017 Nissan Titan is arriving in concert with an upgraded full-size pickup truck warranty that matches Nissan’s commercial van coverage: bumper-to-bumper, five years/100,000 miles.

With so many parents using crew cab pickups as family haulers, it’s gotten to the point where a regular cab full-sizer starts to look weird. Well, Nissan has one on tap that looks weirder.

Nissan will offer a regular cab Titan and Titan XD this fall, part of its plan to flesh out the lineup to three body styles. An extended “King Cab” version will follow the “Single Cab”, which is somewhat jarring when viewed from the side.

Japanese car companies have been trying to break into the American full-sized pickup market for decades. Despite Japanese trucks having a sterling reputation for dependability and reliability internationally, ‘Muricans are a different bunch. Not even Ford’s switch to “European-style” twin-turbo engines and aluminum bodies could stop the freight train that is the F-Series sales chart.

On the opposite end of that sales chart is the last-place Titan. Nissan sold just 12,140 Titans last year, 1/10th of Toyota’s own meager volume and 1/65th of Ford’s truck sales.

Rather than picking up its marbles and going home, Nissan thought outside the box and came up with a novel idea. Why not “right-size” a 3/4 ton truck and sell it for a little more than your average 1/2 ton? With the Detroit Three engaged in serious towing and payload wars, the heavy-duty pickup segment looks more like a Freightliner convention.

That’s where the diesel Titan XD comes in.