Nissan Patrol Warrior helms farewell party

The Nissan Patrol Warrior is a big beefy V8 giant that is the best and the last of an endangered species in a world of rapidly shrinking engines.

Nissan Patrol Warrior is a big and tough SUV that will delight V8 lovers

The mighty V8 engine might well be dying, but it’s not dead yet. And the proof is in this 2.8-tonne pudding called the Nissan Patrol Warrior.

Sure, the eco-friendly tide continues to rise, engulfing more and more of Australia’s new-car fleet. Electric vehicles and hybrids are selling in record numbers, led largely by the ongoing success of Chinese-built EVs, like the Tesla Model Y, Tesla Model 3 and BYD Atto 3.

But pockets of resistance remain, and one of those is the big, beefy Nissan Patrol, complete with its naturally aspirated 5.7-litre V8, which, in a world of rapidly shrinking engines, must be feeling a bit like a dinosaur looking up to the sky and hoping that the big rock streaking toward it is friendly.

The rock isn’t friendly, of course, because just like the Toyota LandCruiser, which ditched the diesel V8 in favour of a V6 when the LC200 gave way to the LC300, the Nissan Patrol’s eight thunderous cylinders are also very much on the endangered-species list.

This Y62 model will soon be replaced by an all-new Y63, and every scrap of mail points to the new model adopting six-cylinder power, with the V8 destined for the history books.

All of which makes this Warrior something of a farewell party, and not just for the current-generation Patrol, but for its big, eight-cylinder powerplant (and its 298kW of power and 560Nm of torque), too.

Warrior, you say? It’s the name given to Nissan’s localisation program, with the Japanese giant partnering with Victoria’s Premcar — the company famed for producing all those V8-powered monsters from FPV, Ford’s answer to Holden’s HSV, back when we built entire cars — to thoroughly Australianise certain vehicles in its line-up.

First, it was the brand’s Navara ute, and now it’s this big and tough SUV.

And we are talking big changes here. The suspension, the exhaust, the wheels, the interior trim and treatment and the exterior look all get overhauled, but — despite the tough-sounding Warrior name — the aim here isn’t to make the angriest off-roader of all time.

Instead, says Premcar, the mission is to “broaden its capabilities”, or, in other words, to make it a better drive, whether you’re on the road or off it.

Just how the new and bonkers bi-modal exhaust — which now exits via side tips positioned just in front of the rear tyre (much like in a Mercedes-AMG G-Class), and unleashes the kind of deep and guttural growl you’d normally associate with a supercar — betters its on-road manners remains a bit of mystery, but damn if it doesn’t sound great.

We’ve only sampled the Warrior in prototype guise, but it’s very clear very quickly that Premcar’s other changes have improved the ageing Patrol’s formula right across the board.

It feels better, and more engaged, on tarmac (tricky to achieve in an elephant-sized SUV that would normally have something of a complicated relationship with corners), and, on first impressions, it appears no less capable of tackling genuinely tough off-road tracks.

While the Patrol Warrior looks and sounds different, it’s the things you can’t see or hear that make the biggest difference here.

Premcar’s Australian engineers have increased the ride height and fitted new all-terrain rubber, but they’ve also replaced the front and rear springs, and entirely re-engineered the Hydraulic Motion Control System (a complicated but important piece of equipment that helps eliminate body roll when the big Patrol is cornering).

The result is giant hulk of a car that doesn’t feel overly giant or hulking from behind the wheel, with the big Nissan gobbling up long and sweeping corners and dirt roads with delight, though tighter stuff is still a little knuckle-whitening.

That exhaust is actually brilliant, too, with Premcar fitting a clever system that is really no louder at suburban speeds, so as not to annoy the neighbours, but that booms into life as the rev count climbs, or if you swap into manual mode.

The Nissan Patrol Warrior will launch in Australia this year, with pricing yet to be confirmed. But the top-spec Patrol Ti-L starts at $97,600, so you can safely expect this one to start north of $100k.

But you’ll also be buying both the best of something, and the last of something. Just don’t look up.