New-look Nissan Navara here this year

A facelifted 2021 Nissan Navara has broken cover and our sources confirm it will be released in Australia by the end of this year.

The new-look dual-cab 4x4 ute was among a host of new models teased in a video as part of the Nissan NEXT 2023 business plan announced last night.

Other vehicles included the upcoming Ariya electric SUV, Armada/Patrol, Frontier, Kicks, Note, Pathfinder, QASHQAI, Rogue, X-TRAIL and the new Nissan 400Z.

Although the shadowy teaser video doesn’t show much, it does reveal a new-look front-end design for the Navara, including new headlights with separate upper and lower LED running light ‘eye lashes’ and a squarer front bumper.

Pictured against a backdrop with a large ‘N’, leaving no doubt this is a refreshed Navara, the ute also wears what appears to be a bulging new bonnet to replace the current Navara’s trademark dished hood, and perhaps even new front quarter guards.

Indeed, the sheetmetal changes go far beyond the mild model year update we had previously expected to arrive in October, following the release of the MY19 Series 4 Navara range in July 2019.

That said, it’s unclear whether the MY21 Series 5 Navara will join key rivals like the Toyota HiLux, Ford Ranger and Mitsubishi Triton in offering active safety features like autonomous emergency braking (AEB), to go with the Series 4 upgrade’s new infotainment system. No mechanical changes are expected.

And it should be noted that this facelift confirms the current Nissan Navara will soldier on until at least the end of Nissan’s mid-term product plan in early 2024, in an apparent attempt to pay the freight for what will be the fifth update for the model since 2015.

Even then, the all-new Nissan Navara that eventually follows will be heavily based on the redesigned Mitsubishi Triton, which is deep into its development cycle and due for reveal next year, as part of the Renault Nissan Mitsubishi Alliance’s new ‘leader/follower’ model strategy.

Until then it remains to be seen whether the new-look MY21 model can arrest the Navara 4x4’s 26 per cent sales slide so far this year. It currently sits behind the Ranger, HiLux, Triton, the discontinued Holden Colorado, Isuzu D-MAX and even the Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series in sales.

The revised Nissan Navara will face stiff competition from all-new competitors from Great Wall, Isuzu, Jeep, Mazda and Toyota – and further afield from LDV, Ford, Mitsubishi, Volkswagen and then Kia and Hyundai.

However, last night Nissan offered one ray of sunlight for Navara lovers, suggesting the next-generation model due around 2025 may not be an identical twin of the next Triton, as expected.

Just 24 hours earlier Alliance executives said ‘follower’ models would share both their bodies and platforms with ‘leader’ models, indicating the next Navara and Triton (and the next X-TRAIL, Outlander and Koleos, etc) would be differentiated only via badging or, at most, bumpers and grilles.

Back-flipping on that last night, Nissan’s global chief Makato Uchida left the door open to some sheetmetal changes between leader/follower twins, suggesting the next Triton/Navara could get different rear tubs and front-end designs.

Uchida-san said the “Nissan-ness” of future models “will be determined by upper body” and that the leader/follower strategy “doesn’t mean that we are going to adopt identical upper [bodies]”.

Confusingly, however he then went on to say there would be “minimal” differentiation between models, and that: “There are other successful models where they adopt common doors, but they look different”.