It's time for some baggy pants at your local Nissan dealer. The company is leaning hard into the killer feature that its midsize truck offers, but its main competitors don't. In a recent interview, a Nissan executive, who is apparently is a fan of early 1990s dance music, busted out a pop culture reference from MC Hammer and blended it with a comment on engines that, well, we just can't touch. Nissan V6 Engines Want To Hammer The Turbo-Four Competition Nissan Nissan’s Senior Manager of Product Planning Brent Hagan told Motor1 the company is all-in on the V6 engine, saying that it is part of the company's story and what makes it different. "Our internal tagline is ‘We’re too V6 to quit,’ because we built our heritage on V6s, from the GT-R and Xterra to the current Frontier and Pathfinder," he said. Presumably, sweat wasn't running all over his chest when he said it.While competitors like the Ford Ranger, Chevrolet Colorado (and GMC Canyon), and the segment-crushing Toyota Tacoma have moved to turbocharged four-cylinder engines, Hagan says not all of their customers are happy. "I see a lot of people posting recently saying, ‘I'm a Toyota guy, or I'm an XYZ company guy. I've been with them for a while, but they've gone away from V6s, and I really prefer V6. I prefer the linearity. I prefer the durability. I prefer the overall performance, and I've never considered a Nissan or a Frontier, but now I'm looking at it because of the V6," he said.Nissan is so dead-set on the V6 that it even declared May 6 to be V6 Day. That's V, the Roman numeral for five, in this case, so hats off to Nissan for a holiday we'd love to see more of.The company has recently made it clear that its future will have plenty of pistons and fewer turbochargers. The automaker is planning new body-on-frame SUVs and large crossovers, and those will continue to use V6 engines along with new V6 engines that get hybrid assistance for improved fuel economy. The Six-Cylinder Engine Will Find A New Frontier Nissan One of the first will be the new Xterra, which is set to arrive in 2028. A new Nissan Frontier will probably arrive around the same time and also get the same engine. Nissan is telegraphing that the next Pathfinder will get a V6 and hybrid assistance as well.Nissan isn't the only V6 left in the midsize truck segment. Honda's Ridgeline comes with one, as does the Jeep Gladiator. Neither is exactly a direct competitor to the Frontier, with the Ridgeline based on a unibody SUV and the Jeep being, well, a Jeep.Two families of V6 engines have been a driving force behind Nissan since the 1990s. The VQ was the original, and versions powered icons like the 350Z, Maxima, and others. A second family, called VR, launched in 2007 and powered the R35 GT-R, the current Nissan Z, and the Armada and Patrol. CarBuzz Insight – Why This Matters: Automakers are moving away from V6 engines to turbo-fours for one main reason: fuel economy. Turbo-fours are better on paper, but cost more to make and have parts that see more stress, and some owners say they don't actually use less fuel in the real world. That consumption and a perceived lack of durability pushes buyers away.A V6 might use a bit more fuel in government tests, but it might not when you're actually using it in real life. Plus, Nissan's V6 engines have been around for a long time, and as Hagan describes it, they're "tried-and-true." Gas might be more expensive than in the past, but in the US it's still a cheap fuel. Replacing a turbo would buy a few years of gas for most drivers, so we see the appeal.If you're still not convinced of the demand for old-school engines, just look to Ram. The company replaced its Hemi V8 in its half-ton pickups with two I6 engines that were superior on paper. But buyers weren't on-board, so Ram put the V8 back and now, 1500 demand outpaces supply. Nissan is hoping for the same thing in the segments where it competes.
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