Nissan announced on July 16 that they are choosing to make only a few small changes in their Nissan Frontier mid-size truck for 2014 - preferring to capitalize on its current market leading complement of premium hardware, extraordinary power and an exceptional level of on- and off-road performance.
The announcement added that the 2014 Titan full-size truck is offered without any enhancements and will come in the same King Cab and Crew Cab body styles with a choice of 4x2 and 4x4 drive configurations. It will come in S, SV, PRO-4X and SL models along with two wheelbases and three bed lengths and it will be available in dealerships in September this year.
From the announcement, it would appear that Nissan is planning on just staying in the game for 2014 - looking to make their mark in 2015.
It is known that Nissan has been working on a new full-size pick-up truck for 2015 that it hopes will energize their competitive position in that market segment, but no definitive information on this truck has leaked out so far.
With the current success of the Frontier mid-size truck, we would not expect a new mid-size Frontier in 2015, but rather see all their efforts going into the Titan.
Nissan has an advantage for their 2015 Titan with the hiring earlier this year of Fred Diaz, the seasoned veteran of the Ram 1500 revitalization and success.
Fred, now in a key executive leadership role at Nissan, knows trucks and understands how to create and deliver high performing and desirable-to-the-consumer pickup trucks from his years a Chrysler and most recently, at the helm of the Ram brand.
In addition, Nissan also should benefit from the collaborative development relationship between Chrysler and Ram not all that long ago, when the two were looking at jointly creating their respective full-size truck offerings.
Fred Diaz and Nissan have been very silent since he joined them which suggests to us that he and his new Nissan team are very hard at work conspiring to make the new Titan for 2015 a truck to be reckoned with.
Even with Fred Diaz calling the plays, Nissan will be coming late to the segment with its new full-size truck as the competition is already aggressively carving up the segment with new and innovative truck offerings for 2014 going into 2015.
New trucks for 2014 include the Chevrolet Silverado that offers a new premium High Country version, GMC Sierra with a reported seriously upgraded Denali premium version and Toyota with a new Tundra and special "1794" premium version.
Ram brand continues to evolve their highly successful Ram 1500 series in 2014 - adding the only diesel power train for a full-size pickup.
Lastly, Ford has introduced their new 2014 F-150 Tremor sport pickup truck to arrive this fall and will reveal a brand new F-150 pickup for 2015.
Despite all of these challenges, we would expect that, under Fred Diaz's tutelage, the 2015 Titan full-size pickup truck will arrive very tough and very competitive.
For 2014, the Frontier is offered in both King Cab and Crew Cab body styles, in 4x2 and 4x4 driveline configurations and in the following trim grades: Frontier S (4-cylinder and V6), SV, PRO-4X, Desert Runner and SL (Crew Cab only).
Enhancements to the 2014 Frontier include:
• Heated front seats added to the SV VTP package
• Three new available aluminum-alloy wheels designs: 16-inch SV grade, 16- inch PRO-4X grade and 18-inch SL grade
• Manual sliding rear window added as standard on all Crew Cab models
(except S)
• Heated front cloth seat available as standard on PRO-4X and optional on SV
• Bluetooth Hands-free Phone System, manual air conditioning, cruise control and steering wheel controls (audio, Bluetooth and cruise control), front
sunglass holder, Bluetooth microphone and upgraded audio system now
standard on S models
• Enhanced navigation system functionality (smartphone integration, enhanced voice recognition and device control, one-shot destination entry)
• NissanConnect Apps smartphone integration for iPhone and Android, SiriusXM TravelLink (fuel prices, movie times, stock updates, sports scores) and SiriusXM Weather
The 2014 Frontier will be available in October 2013
