For a car it would be an insult, but describing a pick-up truck as ‘car-like’ is the highest of high praise. Pick-ups have a tough remit that involves carrying big loads, being capable off-road and serving as a trendy recreational vehicle when your jet-ski needs a tow to the beach but buyers want them to do it all with a car-like sophistication. It’s a tall order but it’s where the new Nissan Navara NP300 is designed to deliver.
Nissan thinks it’s cracked the elusive car-like pick-up formula with the new Navara. This has been achieved, it says, by calling on 80 years of pick-up truck building knowhow and combining that with experience gained more recently creating market-leading crossover SUVs like the Qashqai and Juke. Crossover refinement and road manners married to pick-up toughness and capability sounds like the perfect blend, so is the Nissan Navara car-like? Well, yes and no.
The Navara NP300 rides on the same robust chassis and uses the same 4x4 transmission as its predecessor but significant upgrades to the suspension promise a transformed driving experience. The Navara comes in King-Cab and Double-Cab guises with the later expected to account for 95% of UK sales and featuring independent suspension all round. That most definitely is car-like, as most UK pick-up rivals trundle along with old-school leaf springs propping up the rear end.
The result on the road will be hugely impressive to pick-up owners and naggingly familiar to anyone who drives a big SUV. The Navara maintains good composure through corners that’s a cut above pick-up rivals. It’s also adept at smoothing out rough surfaces, there’s still the occasional shudder transmitted through the cabin and a hint of float over big undulations but the bouncy, knockabout quality we’ve become used to in trucks is all but eliminated.
The steering is well weighted and lacks the nautical vagueness that so often contributed to the car ferry handling of pick-ups a generation behind the Navara. For a vehicle 5.2m long and weighing all but two tonnes, the Navara turns in promptly and is easily adjustable at speed.
In the engine bay, Nissan has drafted in the 2.3-lite DCi diesel unit that’s currently used in over 300,000 vans built by itself and Alliance partner Renault. The turbo diesel is offered in two states of tune, 158bhp for the business-orientated Visa and Acenta trim levels or 187bhp for the higher spec Acenta+, N-Connecta and Tekna variants, which are only offered with the Double-Cab bodystyle.
We tested the twin-turbo 187bhp DCi 190 engine with the 7-speed automatic gearbox that’s set to prove a popular choice at the top end of the Navara range. The auto box is lifted straight from the Infiniti QX70 luxury SUV and it’s seamless in its shifting, if a little slow to respond, while the engine’s refinement is very good, for a pick-up.
In terms of outright grunt, it’s less impressive. Even with 187bhp and 450Nm of torque on tap, you feel the Navara’s weight acting against you when you put your foot down. Combined cycle fuel economy of 40.3mpg and CO2 emissions of 183g/km are OK but opt for the standard 6-speed manual gearbox and you get class-leading 44.1mpg economy and 169g/km emissions.
If the Nissan Navara driving experience comes close to car-like status, the interior achieves it with knobs on. The cabin of the top spec Tekna versions is owes much to Nissan’s X-Trail SUV and perceived quality is a notch above what we’re used to in the pick-up class. Storage is limited to a small glovebox, door pockets and a bin between the seats but rear legroom is enough to sit a six-foot adult behind a similarly sized driver in some comfort.
There are neat touches too, including the large, clear digital display at the heart of the instrument cluster and the 7” NissanConnect touch screen satellite navigation system that’s standard on Tekna models. Nissan also includes the Around View Monitor on Tekna Navaras. This displays images from a series of exterior cameras on to the central display screen to help with parking or avoiding off-road obstacles.
More importantly, all models get a big haul of safety kit including seven airbags and the Forward Emergency Brake autonomous braking system that applies the brakes if it detects an impending collision.
All of which only leaves the business end of the Navara where Double-Cab owners can load up a 1,052kg payload roughly equivalent, says Nissan, to 2.2 cubic metres of firewood or an adult rhinoceros. There’s also a 3,500kg maximum towing capacity should you need more.
- Model: Nissan Navara NP300 Tekna 2.3 DCi 190 auto
- Price: £26,000 (est)
- Engine: 2.3-litre 4cyl twin-turbo diesel
- Power/torque: 187bhp/450Nm
- Transmission: seven-speed auto, four-wheel drive
- Top speed: 112mph
- Economy/CO2: 40.3mpg/183g/km
- On sale : November 2015