The legendary Y61 Nissan Patrol will no longer sold in Australia within 18 months, leaving the way clear for a new NP300 Navara ute-based wagon to replace it and become the company’s new seven-seat, turbo-diesel, heavy-duty SUV option.
The timing of Y61’s demise by the end of 2016, which means it will have had an incredible 18-year run, was confirmed to motoring.com.au by Nissan Australia managing director Richard Emery.
Both the wagon and the cab-chassis versions of the Y61 are set to disappear, leaving the larger and more luxurious Y62 Patrol that has been on sale here since early 2013, but only with a V8 petrol engine.
“We will lose both the older shape Patrol Y61s sometime in the next 18 months and there is no replacement,” confirmed Emery.
The Navara-based off-road wagon is yet to be officially confirmed by Nissan, but is spoken of matter-of-factly by Emery. He has previously made it clear it was under serious consideration for Australia, but stresses the spiritual successor to the original Pathfinder would only come here if the business case stacked up.
Emery said fitting it into an already crowded line-up of SUVs would be an issue, specifically its impact on the seven-seat Pathfinder crossover. However, there is some differentiation as the Pathfinder is a light-duty off-roader and is offered only with petrol engines, although one of those is a fuel-saving petrol-electric option.
“Having a diesel-based seven-seat tow vehicle – which is where Y61 has been really successful for us – means it (the Navara-based
wagon) would give us an opportunity to retain those traditional Y61 buyers in the brand," he said.
“But then a bunch of those people would buy a Pathfinder anyway,” he cautioned. “They will choose between the two cars, so you will have some substitution. Then you have to decide how many more cars you are going to sell by introducing that car when we already have a wide range.
“It’s not that I am against it, but it’s going to be a robust business decision, not just ‘**** that looks good let’s have it’.”
Using a ladder-frame chassis borrowed from the Navara, the wagon would line up technically as a direct competitor for the forthcoming Ford Ranger-based Everest, Toyota HiLux-based Fortuner and Mitsubishi Triton-based third generation Challenger and several body-on-frame wagons already sold here including Holden’s Colorado ute-based Colorado7 and the Isuzu D-MAX-based MU-X.
Emery said the fact ute-based SUVs don’t generally sell well in Australia doesn’t help the Navara-based wagon's cause Down Under, but no doubt he will be watching how well Toyota goes with the Fortuner, which is to be pitched as an alternate for Kluger buyers who want a diesel engine.
“In the context of adding another model to an already busy SUV line-up it [the NP300-based wagon] would have to offer something unique and exceptional to bring it to market,” he said.
“If you look at that segment, something like the Colorado7 doesn’t sell a lot of volume. Challenger never really did a lot of volume.
“So for us it would have to be priced right, specced right and give us significant incremental opportunity for us to do it.”
Priced from $39,950, the Y61 went on sale in Australia in May 1998 – when it was then known as the GU – with a choice of 2.8-litre turbo-diesel and 4.5-litre petrol six-cylinder inline push-rod engines.
While touted as all-new, the GU actually carried over the basic drivetrains, live axles front and rear and coil spring suspension from its predecessor, the GQ (Y60), which launched in 1988.
But Patrol history can be traced all the way back to 1951 when the original 4W60 first appeared. Through the generations it came to dominate the large heavy-duty SUV segment along with the Toyota LandCruiser.
Nowadays sales of the current Y61 Patrol, which is offered as a 3.0-litre turbo-diesel in DX or ST specification, are just a fraction of what they once were.
by Bruce Newton 24th August 2015
