Off-road SUVs are having something of a moment. Put another way, the Jeep Wrangler is getting some direct competition for the first time in years from the Ford Bronco; Toyota brought back the Land Cruiser as a smaller, more rugged offering; and automakers are rushing to add capability to crossovers and SUVs of all sizes and prices. Even so, there are some holes in the playing field: Toyota long ago killed off its retro-flavored FJ Cruiser—though, again, it sort of righted that wrong with the smaller 2024 Land Cruiser and forthcoming 2025 4Runner—as did Nissan its burly Xterra 4×4. And as of now, the Xterra is not officially due for a comeback, even though Nissan recently unveiled a thoroughly modernized Frontier pickup—the same pickup that shared components with the old Xterra, and even more recently, in late December 2024, it filed a trademark application for the Xterra name in America. That got us thinking …
If Nissan were about to reveal a new Xterra today, what might it look like? We turned to our speculative artist wizard, Abimilec Arellano, for a rendering of the would-be, next-generation Nissan Xterra that does not, and possibly will not, ever exist.
Wait, why?! While rumors abound that a new Xterra is coming, and there’s that trademark, and such a model would make tons of sense in today’s 4×4-crazed market, Nissan has officially said it’s not doing a new Xterra, at least not any time soon. Except that the automaker’s chief of planning and head of the Americas, Ponz Pandikuthira, spoke in early 2024 with unexpected clarity about what the allegedly not-forthcoming Xterra might need to be in an interview with Autoblog: “Authentic,” and a “serious truck.”
Nissan is known for pragmatism—just look at the blood it’s squeezed from the proverbial stone with its more popular models’ solid fuel economy in recent years using old-fashioned, affordable port fuel injection—and we think reviving the Xterra couldn’t be simpler. After all, spinning up the old Xterra’s frame would be straightforward. It was shared with the contemporary Frontier pickup, which was revised heavily for 2022 while keeping, essentially, the same frame it used before. In other words, Nissan still builds the 2015 Xterra’s frame, or a version of it, for the 2024 Frontier and the larger Titan that uses the same components.
The Titan is exiting the market, leaving excess capacity at the body-on-frame production line in Nissan’s Canton, Mississippi plant where the Frontier and Titan are built. What better way to fill that void—and with a product likely to be more popular than the Titan—than with a new-age Xterra? Nissan could follow the same playbook it used before, meaning the Xterra would share its powertrain, frame, suspension, and even its dashboard and front-seat layout with the Frontier pickup, leaving everything aft of the B-pillar unique to the SUV. The styling wouldn’t even need to be all that adventurous—take the Fronty’s front clip as is, which is trucky and tough-looking, and maybe add some more tough cladding for fun, then graft a stepped roof and asymmetrical tailgate onto the back end to achieve that signature Xterra SUV look, and boom, done.
In other words, if Nissan brought back the Xterra and made it look anything like this rendering here, it’d have a winner. (Heck, the original 2000 Nissan Xterra won that year’s MotorTrend SUV of the Year award!) The new Frontier, on which our rendering is based, is a handsome, burly looking thing. It looks even better with the old Xterra’s signature stepped roof design, built-in roof rack, and tailgate blister. No, that bulge on the tailgate isn’t a faux fuel can or something—it’s where Nissan punched out the sheetmetal on the original Xterras to fit a first-aid kit. Neat. As before, the Xterra has been imagined as a four-door, two-row SUV.
When the previous-generation Xterra faded out, it was offered only with a 4.0-liter V-6 engine, an ancient lump of a powertrain that nonetheless continued on for years in the Frontier. Today, were the Xterra to come back, it’d inherit the 2022–present Frontier’s new 310-hp 3.8-liter V-6 and nine-speed automatic transmission.
A Pro-4X ultimate-off-road-capable trim would be a given, and we’ve done up our hypothetical Xterra in the same Pro-4X treatment offered on the current Frontier. Stir in the Frontier’s interior improvements, and Nissan has everything it needs to put the SUV back in service. We’d welcome a new Xterra, if only to provide some price competition for the ever-more-expensive Jeep Wrangler and new Ford Bronco, let alone the upcoming 4Runner and Land Cruiser models.