2015 Nissan Navara: New model range won’t be sold alongside the old model

The D22 Nissan Navara was the more basic, price-leading work truck - it originally went on sale here way back in 1997 - while the D40 was the better equipped and more capable recreational vehicle for buyers who needed a flexible work vehicle. That model originally went on sale here in 2005.

Nissan Australia managing director and CEO, Richard Emery, confirmed the demise of the entry level D22 Navara and its D40 sibling at the recent local launch of the new 2015 Navara range.

“Both those vehicles were finishing their run anyway,” Emery told CarAdvice in relation to the D22 and D40 models. “Nissan kept the D22 going elsewhere around the world so we did have the option to take it over the past few years, but that time has finished,” he said.

Emery told CarAdvice that Nissan effectively shut down production of both old Navara variants at the same time, ensuring availability of the base model dried up along with the model that is being replaced by the new version, which the brand is marketing as the NP300 Navara.

“The production facility in Thailand is a completely new factory which was built specifically for this new NP300 Navara,” Emery said. “The old factory will cease building vehicles.”

Emery went on to explain that the lack of a cheaper, D22-style variant influenced the thinking behind offering so many variants of the new model - 27 in total.

“That’s the idea yes,” Emery said. “We’ve effectively been shut out of some of this utility segment by our lack of five-star safety with the old vehicle, for example. Moving to 27 variants of this new model, probably ten of those variants are specifically designed to conquest some of the fleet and government interest that we couldn’t aim for previously.”

Emery explained that case is specifically so for the coming single- and king-cab Navaras that will go on sale in Australia from September. Despite the lengthy success of the older, more basic D22 previously, Emery commented that its days may have been numbered regardless of supply drying up. “I’m not sure we would have continued with D22 even if it was an option for us,” he said.

The 27 variant range will be broken down as follows - the 4x2 variant range consists of 11 variants made up of two single-cab, one king-cab and eight dual-cabs, with seven manual variants and four automatics. There will also be 16 different 4x4 models: three single-cabs, six king-cabs and seven dual-cabs, with ten manual variants and six automatics.

The NP300 Navara dual-cab line-up goes on sale in Australia on 1 June 2015, with the rest of the Navara range to land in September this year.