Nissan Teases a New “Special” Pickup Truck

It looks like a new generation for an as-yet-unknown Nissan pickup truck is coming just in time for summer. Earlier this week, Nissan posted the picture seen below on their global Instragram account with the tagline, “There’s a special member of the Nissan family on the way. Due date: June 11”.

The picture alone doesn’t tell us very much about whatever this new pickup truck might be. All we can see is that it features a totally new grille unlike anything on any current Nissan pickup, along with new boomerang LEDs.

But, what exactly are we looking at?

As you may know, Nissan currently manufactures two different pickup trucks – the full-size Nissan Titan and the mid-size Nissan Navara / Frontier. As you continue reading, we’ll examine what model this pickup will likely be and why.

Let the speculation commence!

First, let’s look at what evidence supports that this could be the next-generation Nissan Titan. Even though it it’s hard to judge the truck’s size from a single veiled image, it definitely does look like it’s got the proportions to be a full-size pickup. Furthermore, the humongous grille that’s barely visible beneath the curtain looks a lot closer to the current Titan than the current Navara. With these two factors in mind, it’s easy to see why several other auto blogs believe that this new truck is the next Nissan Titan.

The only problem?

The Nissan Titan is a US-exclusive model. Why would they tease a US-only pickup truck on their global Nissan account when they have a perfectly good Nissan USA Instagram? For the record, Nissan USA hasn’t posted anything about this new truck on either their Instagram or Twitter. In addition, Nissan has already sort-of hinted that we’ll see the next-gen Nissan Titan at the 2015 Detroit Auto Show.

This leads us to believe that the image at the top of this post actually previews the next-gen Nissan Navara / Frontier. It also makes more sense that this would be the “special member” of Nissan’s family since the Frontier has been around, in one form or another, since 1986.

Therefore, even though both Nissan pickups are long in need of updates (the Titan hasn’t seen any major updates since its launch in 2003), it seems most likely that the Frontier is the one getting a new generation. The current Frontier debuted in 2004, so it really is past due.

As for our Titan fans, don’t worry… Nissan has already hinted that the next-generation Titan will likely debut early next year, so you’ve only got a little while longer to wait.

In the meantime, you can watch the promo video for the new Nissan pickup below: