Nissan is showing off a bunch of cool, modified concepts of cars that probably won’t ever make it to market, so you know what that means. It’s SEMA season, baby, and here’s the latest: The Nissan Nismo Off Road Frontier V8 concept. It looks cool, my dudes.
We’ll start with the engine. As you know, the current production Frontier does not feature any V8 whatsoever. The only engine available is a 3.8-liter V6. For this concept, Nissan dropped in the 5.6-liter V8 found in the full-size Titan. It’s unclear if there have been any modifications there, but in the bigger truck, it makes 400 horsepower and 413 lb-ft of torque. Conversely, the regular Frontier’s V6 makes 310 hp and 281 lb-ft of torque.
Then there are the off-road mods. There’s a cat-back exhaust and a custom Nismo off-road cold-air intake. The Titan further loans its hardware in the form of a wide-track suspension that’s made up of lower control arms, wheel hubs, front spindles, and rear axle. Custom suspension parts include a rear leaf spring pack with Bilstein and Nismo external reservoir shocks to improve payload capacity and increase ride height, and upper control arms with Bilstein and Nismo coilover shocks.
All that suspension work, of course, makes the truck wider, so it also got a custom widebody kit that includes a carbon fiber front fender, bedsides, and hood. You cannot go wrong with widebody. I read this in the rules. Finally, there’s a prototype Nismo off-road front bumper that provides more tire clearance and improves the approach angle.
Other off-road goodies include a warn winch, LED lighting, prototype rock rails, spare wheel and tire carriers in the bed, a roof rack, and special off-road wheels and mud-terrain tires. The whole thing wears pretty sweet livery, too. I’m digging the white/black/red/bronze color combination.
The truck is the work of Forsberg Racing, which is owned and managed by professional driver and three-time Formula Drift champ Chris Forsberg.
Nissan says the truck is meant to inspire Frontier owners about what they could do to and with their own trucks. The off-road parts seen here will be available for purchase through Nissan dealers soon, and some of the prototype parts could make it to production one day, too. Nissan just didn’t indicate which.
The automaker imagines the truck for “Baja-style desert running.” Seeing as the new Frontier is already quite good, a V8-powered off-road one sounds great. I’m already doing desert running with it in my dreams, which is probably where this V8-powered Nismo off-road Frontier is meant to stay.
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