Warrior arrival expected to push buyer interest even higher
The resurgent Nissan Patrol heavy-duty 4×4 wagon is expected to have its best sales result ever in 2023.
And the Patrol brand is also forecast to sell at its strongest level in almost 20 years.
Nissan Australia expects the big petrol 5.6-litre V8-powered off-road SUV to sell more than 6000 examples, spurred on by increased supply to service existing orders, ongoing buyer interest and the arrival of the locally-tuned Patrol Warrior late in the year.
If it does hit the 6000-plus target, it will surpass the highest tally for the current Y62 Patrol, which sold a record 5724 examples in Australia in 2022, according to VFACTS data.
That’s a far cry from the low of 2017 when just 916 Y61 Patrols were sold. This was the first year the old GU Patrol wasn’t still on offer and in the days before the coronavirus shut down international travel and spurred an increase in local tourism and towing and increased interest in the Y61.
You have to go back to 2005 and the Y61 (or GU) turbo-diesel when sales numbers last topped 6000, with 6636 sold.
“We think when Warrior arrives it will really interest a whole new segment of customers who are not interested in Patrol today,” predicted Nissan Australia managing director Adam Paterson.
“And we do have a queue of customers waiting for the Patrol today. We will do around the 6000 mark this year, give or take 100 units.
“But as an approximate round number that’s where it is.”
Nissan sells two versions of the Y62 Patrol in Australia at the moment; the $82,160 (plus on-road costs) Ti and the $95,115 (plus ORCs) Ti-L.
But the off-road focussed Warrior being developed with Premcar is expected to be closer to $200,000.
The Warrior is due around September 2023 and is one of four new models Nissan Australia has confirmed it will launch over the next 18 months.
The QASHQAI e-POWER hybrid is also confirmed and another new arrival is expected to be the Z NISMO sports car. The fourth is tipped to be an as yet unspecified new derivative of an existing model.
As encouraging as Nissan’s 2023 sales target for Patrol is, it’s less than half the 13,152 Toyota LandCruiser 300 Series wagons sold last year.
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Keyword: Nissan Patrol sales record forecast