Remember when the Nissan Frontier was a cute little truck?
Well, it's all grown up now, and you wouldn't so much call it cute as you would ... rugged.
Nissan now puts the Frontier on the same frame as its mammoth Titan pickup. And even on the interior, our tester, which was a Crew Cab, looked and felt like a full-size truck.
But, just to distinguish it from the Titan, Nissan gives the Frontier a four-cylinder engine in addition to the six-cylinder that our tester had.
From a design standpoint, the Frontier deserves its props. It's a sporty-looking truck that seems to take design cues from SUVs and even cars.
The wheel wells, for instance, flare nicely to give it a husky, tough look. But the chrome-bar grille lends some class and the front end's sloping lines suggest sleekness that you don't see in many trucks.
The interior isn't fancy, but rather functional, as one would expect from a pickup.
Under the hood, the V-6 engine in the tester makes a hearty 261 horsepower, and feels very much like a V-8 when you drive it. It also, unfortunately, has V-8-like numbers at the gas pump; 14 mpg city, 19 highway.
If you don't need extra power for towing or hauling, stick with the four-cylinder, which delivers 152 horsepower and gets 19 mpg city, 23 highway.
But if you need to tow, go with the 4.0-liter V-6, which has a towing capacity of 6,500 pounds. That engine is mated to a five-speed automatic transmission.
The Frontier comes with either two-wheel or four-wheel drive.
Competitors to the Frontier include the Toyota Tacoma, Dodge Dakota and the venerable Ford Ranger.
The Frontier ranges in price from around $17,540 to almost $30,000.
No comments:
Post a Comment