But it wasn’t what people were hoping for.
Back in early September Nissan teased the now-revealed 2024 Frontier Hardbody Edition. However, many automotive publications and just plain ol’ enthusiasts failed to realize the partial front-end of the modern truck teased along with a full view of the old Hardbody was the new Frontier, not a completely new, compact pickup model. While the truth was revealed on September 14, let’s just say some are still licking their wounds.
Britney Spears’ former Mercedes is now for sale.
Many still have warm, fuzzy feelings about the Nissan Hardbody, a small truck that many a broke young person and penny-pinching older individuals thoroughly enjoyed. Those same people, lamenting the ill-informed decision to part with their Hardbody back in the day, have been hopeful Nissan would finally be jumping into the teeny-tiny compact truck market.
For now, that razor-thin niche is occupied by the Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz. There’s been much speculation that Ram will bring its Brazil-only Rampage to North America with a 2024 reveal, but for now that’s rumor and conjecture.
There’s also talk of Toyota jumping in the niche with a Corolla-based compact pickup. Other, more obscure and wild rumors about Subaru, Honda, even Volkswagen getting in on the action are flying around as well.
The thing is it seems Ford has intentionally limited Maverick production at least in part to keep sales prices high. That would indicate that compact pickups just don’t generate much in the way of net revenue. We know full-size trucks are cash cows for automakers and have been for a long time. Even the mid-size models have comfortable profit margins. But these compact, unibody pickups don’t seem to be worth selling in mass quantities.
This is where the desire of enthusiasts and the realities of the modern automotive market clash. Probably fueling the lack of a thriving compact truck market is a lack of demand among the populace. While enthusiasts claim that would change if automakers would jump in the niche, it’s obvious the big players see things differently.
With what it costs to develop and launch an entirely new model in 2023, we can hardly blame automakers for being so cautious. Personally, we’d love to see more sports and muscle cars on the market as well, but we get that many factors determine what we actually get. And the average consumer loves crossovers. That hurts because we’re beyond sick of those things but most people can’t seem to get enough of them.
In the meantime, Nissan says the 2024 Frontier has a base MSRP of $29,770. It’s sad that such a price sounds almost shockingly low, but in today’s market it is. If you want to get the Hardbody Edition, the limited-edition package costs an extra $3,890.
Maybe sometime in the future compact trucks will make a comback. But for now this is about as close as you’ll get from Nissan.
Images via Nissan
