Next-Gen Nissan Titan: That Thing Got a Hemi?

Next-Gen Nissan Titan: That Thing Got a Hemi?

By Bill Visnic

CASCAIS, Portugal -- Nissan Motor Co. Ltd., squeezed by high gasoline prices and a rapidly contracting full-size pickup segment as it struggled to generate U.S.-market credibility for its Titan, announced last month Chrysler LLC will build the next-generation Titan for Nissan.

It was tacit admission from Nissan that it no longer wants to commit the painful amount of product-development resources required to forge an eventual presence in the domestic-dominated full-size-pickup segment -- particularly at a time when the market is so demonstrably turning away from those vehicles. With Nissan's handing over of the Titan to Chrysler, the company is, in effect, getting out of the pickup-development business.

But Nissan intends to market a Titan that is far more than a badge-engineered version of Chrysler's Dodge Ram, William J. Krueger, Nissan North America Inc.'s senior vice president-manufacturing, purchasing and supply chain management for The Americas, told AutoObserver at a recent media event here.

Krueger said the next-generation Titan, to be built starting in 2011 in Chrysler's pickup assembly plant in Saltillo, Mexico, will employ the architecture of the all-new 2009 Dodge Ram, whose introduction comes this fall, but "the upper body will be unique to Nissan."

Krueger said given the current business and market conditions at both companies, the deal "makes perfect sense," in that it frees Nissan to earmark capacity at the Titan's current manufacturing home in Canton, Miss.,  to other, more profitable ventures - namely a new plan to build light-commercial vehicles at the site. Chrysler, tussling with manufacturing capacity overweighted to body-on-frame pickups, presumably is positioned to make the Titan more cheaply and efficiently in Mexico.

Krueger also claims using Chrysler underpinnings will enable a wider scope for the Titan model range, which currently is limited to two body styles and a single V8 engine.

"We want to leverage the Titan identity and appeal of the Titan," he said, "but offer a much broader offering in the marketplace."

But will the deal ultimately include access to Chrysler's engines - most importantly, the renowned Hemi V8?

"That's still being worked out," Krueger said. "Initially, maybe it doesn't make sense," he said, conceding Chrysler may be reluctant to compromise its carefully crafted Hemi image by sharing it with Nissan.

At any rate, the segment is certain to fall under increasing fuel-economy pressure, making large, powerful V8s - even the Hemi - less attractive than in the red-misted years of the horsepower wars that spawned the new-age Hemi. Nissan could, for example, enjoy access to Chrysler V6s for the Mexico-built Titan, as Chrysler at present has no valuable brand equity in those engines.

So while the big question of engine-sharing for the co-built Chrysler and Nissan pickups remains to be resolved, much of the overall engineering and manufacturing cooperation will soon be underway, said Krueger.

"We're going to help support the Chrysler team in integrating" current Titan engineering with that of the upcoming new Ram, he said. He says this will include matters such as defining how the next-generation Titan's sheet metal will match up with the hard points of the Ram architecture, and ensuring most of the consumer "touch points" are unique to Nissan.

"We'll have to start with Chrysler soon on all aspects" of integration to meet the target of producing the next Titan in the Saltillo plant by 2011, said Krueger.

Another potentially prickly point will be ensuring quality. Nissan endured earned criticism for the products, including the Titan, initially produced at the Canton plant, and Chrysler, meanwhile, has its own checkered quality history.

But Krueger is optimistic Chrysler's hiring of Doug Betts - most recently working for Nissan, ironically, but who forged a quality-meister reputation at Toyota - as vice president and chief customer officer, will ensure the Chrysler-built Titan will not suffer from quality issues.

Betts "knows the Nissan quality expectations" said Krueger.

And as for co-engineering with others, "This isn't the first time we've done this," said Krueger. He says Nissan in fact has experience with many levels of co-marketing and co-engineering.

At the most rudimentary level, Krueger says Nissan will be building a version of its Versa subcompact for Chrysler to sell in South America. "The Versa is one example where it's really just a rebadging," he said.

At the next level is an arrangement such as that with American Suzuki. Nissan's Smyrna, Tenn., plant will build a version of the company's Frontier midsize pickup that Suzuki will sell starting this fall as the Equator. It is more than a rebadging, Krueger said, because the Suzuki will feature unique bodywork and other features.

The third level is that of an arrangement such as with the Chrysler-built Titan, Krueger said, one in which both companies cooperate on engineering, each company's vehicle will present its own styling and there will be unique interiors and other substantive differentiating factors.

Photo by Nissan
2008 Nissan Titan

Michelle Krebs:  is Editor-in-Chief of AutoObserver.com. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.