Review
Just in case we thought that Nissan had gone all sissy with its line up of road-biased "soft roaders", the same company brings us the Jurassic-era Pathfinder, competing against the Toyota Land Cruiser and Mitsubishi Shogun to be crowned as king of the old-fashioned off-roaders.
It certainly looks the part, sharing much of its styling (along with its mechanical underpinnings) with the Navara pick up truck. Paint one white and stick "UN" on the doors and it would look at home in any international warzone.
The interior is based around the same ethos, being tough, basic and yet good to look at. The vast interior offers loads of space for four or five occupants, although the fold-out third row seats are only really suited to smaller, squashier children. Equipment levels are reasonable, too, although only the top spec "Aventura" gets all the toys.
It drives pretty much as you would expect. On normal roads it feels heavy and slow to respond, with lots of body roll accompanying attempts at more rapid progress. But off-road a battery of lockable differentials and clever traction control makes it pretty much unstoppable.
Two engines are available, although we would struggle to see any point at all to the 4.0 litre V6 petrol version, which costs considerable more than the more sensible 2.5 litre diesel and drinks fuel at a frankly terrifying rate: a combined economy figure of 20.9 mpg is not acceptable by modern standards. The diesel engine is loud under hard acceleration (and even then, progress never feels very rapid), but at least it should be capable of returning more than 30 mpg under gentle use.