REVIEW
There’s always been a trade-off where pick-up trucks are concerned: for all that toughness and carrying capacity, you had to put up with a certain lack of sophistication in the driving experience. Well, the new Nissan Navara puts an end to all that, or so Nissan would have us believe.
Nissan has been building pick-up trucks for over 80 years, so it has undoubted expertise in this area. But its more recent successes have been in the passenger car realm with road-biased crossover SUVs like the X-Trail, Qashqai and Juke. The new Nissan NP300 Navara pick-up is said to be a combination of these two knowledge bases: a tough, off-roading, working truck with the refined road manners of a crossover. That’s the plan anyway.
The Navara will need to be good as the UK pick-up market is hotting up. The likes of Mitsubishi’s L200, Ford’s Ranger and theToyota HiLux offer stiff competition, and we’ll soon see the Fiat Fullback joining the fray, along with the Renault Alaskan, which is based on the same platform at the Navara. Even Mercedes-Benz is poised to sell a pick-up in the UK, and has done a deal to share Navara tech. Buyers are not short of choice and the options are growing.
The Navara is offered in King-Cab or Double-Cab form, although there’s also a chassis cab option to take specialist modifications. Both versions offer rear seats, but while the Double-Cab has a traditional bench in the back and four proper doors, the King-Cab has two cinema-style folding rear seats and small back doors hinged on the rearmost edge.
While the Navara King-Cab is only offered in entry-level Visia and Acenta trims, the Double-Cab is also available in plusher Acenta+, N-Connecta and Tekna grades. The King-Cab can also be had as a front-wheel-drive-only model, whereas all the Double-Cabs are all-wheel drive.
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In the engine bay, the Navara employs a 2.3-litre diesel engine that’s in widespread use across the Renault and Nissan van ranges. It comes in entry-level 158bhp guise or with twin-turbos boosting the output to 187bhp. A six-speed manual is the standard gearbox, but there’s a 7-speed auto that’s predicted to be popular in the higher-spec versions.
Specification levels vary widely depending on which of the trim levels you choose, but N-Connecta and Tekna versions get the NissanConnect 7” touchscreen sat-nav. All models also come with seven airbags and Nissan’s Forward Emergency Braking autonomous braking tech, which helps the Navara achieve low insurance groupings.
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