2017 Nissan Titan King Cab – first impressions

What seems to be a very “American,” pickup market is apparently booming lately with segment sales spiking up by 3.8 percent in January, which is extraordinary. In this division, nearly every player is offering at least three cab configurations except for Nissan, but that is changed because they have finished their 13-month roll out with this 2+2 door extended cab which is placed between the regular and crew cab variants in company’s Titan and Titan XD lineups. Nissan decided to call it a King Cab, and it is roughly equal to Double Cab at Chevy/GMC and Toyota, Quad Cab at Ram (Ram also offers a fourth Mega Cab option on its heavy-duty lineup), and SuperCab at Ford.

But this was too easy for Nissan, and they decided to go a step further and offer, according to them a segment-first, rear-seat delete option. What does this option do for you? It saves a few pounds by removing the rear seat, rear heater duct, and rear roof-mounted assist grips and adds a flat rear load floor and rear wall finisher with tie-down hooks. But that is not all. It also makes additional dry and secure in-cab storage space which can be accessed via two wide-swinging rear-hinged half doors (they open only when the front door is open).

This additional space is a great thing mainly because the fact is, and it was admitted by Nissan truck boss Fred Diaz, that the back seat isn’t very comfortable for adults. According to stats from the data regarding the head, leg, shoulder, and hip room dimensions it easy to see that the 2017 Nissan Titan King Cab offers the smallest front and rear seat passenger volume in the class. The leg room is the tightest, with 24.8 inches (8.7 inches less than the next in segment – Ford F-150) and that is what will make the most problems for the passengers.

Knowing Nissan and their “flirting” with the commercial market with this truck, space won’t be the problem because the simple fact is commercial market has the most use for regular and extended cabs because the companies do not drive people on the back seat in most cases. Current commercial sales of the Titan are at 5%, but this is nothing bad because you need to have in mind that Nissan just recently released the regular cab version.

According to Diaz, commercial business accounts for 20% of the overall truck market, 30% of which is reserved for extended cab, so it is easy to deduce that Nissan is aiming at that 30 % for Titan King Cab, and they expect that all of them will opt for the rear seat delete.

For the mere mortals who would like to have one of these Nissan made available King Cab models in S, SV, or Pro-4X trim levels with a choice of RWD or four-wheel-drive. Nissan also offers two V8 engines – 5.6 L petrol powered Endurance that pumps out 390 HP and 394 lb-ft of torque and 5.0 L Cummins that can deliver 310 HP 555 lb-ft of torque and is available as gas powered or turbo-diesel (only on Titan XD).

Nissan is also considering of adding a V6 to the lineup, bit, for now, it is only a thought. The gas engines are capable of towing 9.420 pounds in standard Titan trim or up to 11.510 pounds in XD trim, while the turbo-diesel XD can haul an impressive 12.630 pounds. As for the payload capacity, it ranges from 1.620 to 2.290 pounds.

The price of this beast is yet unknown, and we expect that Nissan might disclose that a little before Titan King Cab’s spring 2017 on-sale date. We also think that Nissan might be preparing some special variants, and the reason to believe so is the fact that the dealers all across are eagerly waiting for something similar to the Warrior Concept from the Detroit show in 2016.

At the display right alongside the vehicle were some 1-inch and 3-inch suspension lift kits which, as we found out, the team is preparing to make factory installed as soon as the safety and durability development tests are completed (necessary to support Titan’s best-in-class 5-year/100.000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty).