It looks like Nissan Titan fans will have to wait a few more years before the next generation Titan comes out. When the Nissan-Chrysler deal fell through, the Japanese automaker announced their commitment to stay in the full size pickup truck market and they are already working on the Titan replacement by themselves.
Although they didn’t have a display at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show that’s about to end this weekend, Nissan managed to make announcements about their trucks at the event.
The Nissan Titan experienced a few setbacks apart from the deal that didn’t happen including dwindling sales numbers. 2009 sales of the Nissan Titan dropped 44.1% from the previous year. But Nissan remains hopeful about the Titan.
“We had a pretty good December,” said Larry Dominique, Nissan North America’s VP for Product Planning. “From a market share standpoint, in October, November and December we were up 28 percent from the year before, on a month-by-month basis. On a [market] share basis, we were up 41% for those three months.”
According to Dominique, the increased sales were due to the cumulative effort of Titan dealers to seek out loyal customers whose old Nissan Titans need replacement. Nissan also improved the Nissan Titan’s traffic in showrooms and offered “value packaging”, which bundles popular option packages at a lower price.
The Titan is already the oldest half-ton pickup out there and since it debuted way back in 2003, this truck’s life span will reach up to 11 years. Nissan will likely be keeping the Titan’s 5.6-liter V8, but will be adding short term enhancements using hardware from their existing trucks such as the Nissan Armada and the Infiniti QX56 until its full redesign in 2014.
Dominique also said they will be seeking the approval of the Japan team and Nissan Senior VP for Light Commercial Vehicle business unit Andy Palmer and CEO Carlos Ghosn about building a heavy duty Titan and a light commercial vehicle truck. The heavy duty Titan will have a different powertrain and frame, but the same exterior and interior designs. On the other hand, the 2500 or a 3500 truck will allow their LCV team to grow and give them more truck volume. Reports say that while the light duty truck once approved will begin production after at least 2 years, the heavy duty truck may come out even before the release of the all-new Titan in 2014.
Americans love their large trucks and Nissan is committed to stay in the full size pickup truck market even though Titan sales have been dwindling down. To be able to compete against the Big Three, as well as Toyota, Nissan has to work on a Titan redesign and quick.
The 2009 Nissan Frontier introduced a new grille and wheels, as well as a few other styling modifications. For 2010, the addition of the exterior paint color Night Armor is the only styling change.
There aren’t any new styling modifications for the 2010 Nissan Titan except for the addition of Blue Steel and Navy Blue as new exterior paint colors. Like the 2010 Nissan Frontier, Nissan also made the necessary safety changes such as side curtain airbags and stability control standard on all trims, as well as ABLS.