If you’re not familiar with the very under-rated song from Australian rock royalty Skyhooks, then you may not fully understand the wonderful dichotomy of the Nissan Patrol.
Here in Ti-L form, at a chin-descending $98,000 driveaway, when it’s not your two-metres-wide “luxo four-bee-four” you’re trying to thread through cramped suburbia, it can be easy to forget to breathe.
The last Nissan Patrol yours truly drove was mum’s long-wheelbase MQ tank which we dubbed the “Bronze Bullet” because once it was up to speed, you sure-as-heck didn’t want anything to step out in front.
Matching its horizontal presence is its length, surpassing more than five metres of garage space without the 3.
5-tonne tow bar which you’ll certainly smack a shin on if you are half as clumsy as me.
Unfortunately, the outgoing Y62 Patrol doesn’t get much in the way of colour choice; it’s titanium silver, gunmetal grey, obsidian black or a charcoal-ish Nutella-like hue called “Rich Brown”.
In the name of transparency, the Patrol’s off-road repertoire remains untested because, like the real world of an off-roader not permanently based in suburbia’s outer-rim and beyond, I simply didn’t have time to get it off the blacktop – with exception to a short strip of gravel road leading to a park in Anglesea.
What a weekend visiting this blink-and-miss-it seaside town along the Great Ocean Road offers is a chance to take the usual cubic metres of one’s household stuff needed for keeping a one-year-old alive and “happy”.
So Big Pat spent 95% of its loan time – courtesy of Nissan Australia – on bitumen, which offered plenty of opportunity to grow not only accustomed to it, but unexpectedly fond of it.
Unlike the rest of Grey Nomad Australia, I’m not psychologically married to the Toyota LandCruiser and let’s face it, not all marriages are healthy, sustainable or destined to last.
Patrol sales have been doing surprisingly well this year, improving 44% for 1458 reported units (VFACTS); admittedly it’s a 10th of what its direct rival is doing, but only one has DPF problems.
Like the LC, Pat has an enormous cavern where your 12 kitchen sinks can travel in supreme comfort, or half that if you need to use the third-row seats, which fold up and down with a firm but fair-enough clunk.
They’re thickly padded, covered in leather and there’s even curtain airbags to protect little scones from side impacts.
Not that you’d likely feel much unless you’re being T-boned by an Abrams.
The seven-speed auto may be delivering 560Nm of torque down the drivetrain, but using all 298kW doesn’t kick in until 5800rpm, so when you belt the throttle, yes, it is like launching the Delta IV Heavy, but gliding through traffic reveals a short, rev-happy wait time before changing up.
Unable to ignore that colossal 5.6-litre V8, it would save a little bit of fuel money changing gear sooner, but I guess if you’re buying one of these 2.5-tonne-plus continent-crossers, those drops of fuel might as well be in the ocean.
Sitting like a lord in what feels like Picard’s Galaxy Class chair, you tower over hatchbacks and look down at project managers in their Hilux Rogues, and casually switch on the heating or cooling function depending on the temperature.
It’s impossible to not find or readjust to a comfy position.
You’re surrounded by an engaging command centre of mixed leather and faux wood that absolutely has not gone out of style in my book, so long as you’re in touch with the way the world was before brushed aluminium and gloss black gear selector shrouding.
The ratios in the electric steering rack are on the lighter side, making virtually zero effort of directing its bow according to the sextant (sorry, satnav) which is surprisingly accurate for an old OE system not offering Android CarPlay.
I love the inclusion of a CD player and continue to praise a carmaker which leaves it there just in case.
The integrated headrest DVD screens are also old school but praiseworthy, likewise the 12 drink holders throughout, charging ports all over the joint and tri-zone climate.
Conscious of the potential for inter-desert travel, Nissan has stuck UV-reducing glass in the first-row doors, and when the sun goes down the auto-levelling xenon headlights cut through the night.
As you power down the highway, it feels more appropriate to play composer Hans Zimmer’s theme from Crimson Tide than actual songs, because unless you’ve got the cruise control set, it’s so easy to temper the USS Alabama’s snarling powerplant.
Should anyone try to commit mutiny and remove you from the driver’s seat, they wouldn’t be surprised if you reacted like Captain Ramsey – it’ll do 0-100km/h in about seven seconds for goodness sake.
That’s the kind of power you want a calm, rational Lt Cmdr Ron Hunter in charge of.
Filling the 140-litre tank with premium 95RON might seem expensive at $1.50/l – that’s $210, thank you kindly – but when you look at the 900km range, consider how much gear/children/kitchen sink you can shove into this thing (750kg of payload FYI) with a potential 3.
5 tonnes of braked caravan/boat/meteorite behind, to a total seven-tonne gross combined mass, it’s very affordable.
And when yet another 200 Series rolls up beside you at the servo, you can smile to yourself knowing you’re 35mm taller, 215mm longer, 25mm wider, 47mm higher off the ground and, thanks to Toyota’s recent announcement, you’ll always remember you’re in what will soon be one of the only petrol V8 luxury off-roader wagons that isn’t a Range Rover.
Negotiating small roundabouts can be a little embarrassing when you have two goes getting around, as too is having to reverse-park the gargantuan Alabama into the cabin’s tiny slot where a regular car might park at the Anglesea Big4.
This isn’t a criticism; it’s preposterously good fun.
It feels like the whole campsite is watching, but fortunately Nissan’s 360-degree birds-eye camera helps you avoid touch-parking (or simply flattening) the clapped-out Fiesta beside, and stops you turning the cabin into the Cairns Marlin Marina.
Essentially, the Patrol will undoubtedly match the LandCruiser Sahara going toe-to-toe, but let’s face it; they seldom actually go as far as the brochure’s CGI backdrops entice you to go.
And for those that do, you can fit all the Safari4x4 snorkels, ARB bullbars, Warn winches and Rhino Rack roof trays you like with the 20 grand you saved.
There are even people with the nerve to fit a Harrop supercharger because they upgraded the meteorite to a moon.
If you have a personality you will be happier with the characterful, interesting and odd-one-out Nissan Patrol, otherwise you can simply follow the nomadic herd into a potential DPF depression.
But going with the crowd, being part of the louder majority doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for the tall timber.
The 60 Series Patrol first arrived in 1951, like the Toyota, and going on Australian sale in 1960, it was the first vehicle to cross our Simpson Desert.
Australian society might have a cultural xenophobia for the tall poppies, yet we regard Skyhooks as one of the greatest rockbands in our history, and one could argue Australia wouldn’t be what it is without either, nor wonderful machines like the Nissan Patrol.
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