TWO TRIBES

IT’S A CLASH OF THE TITANS, AS NISSAN’S V8 PATROL TAKES ON TOYOTA’S NEW V6 LANDCRUISER

- MATT RAUDONIKIS

THE NISSAN Patrol and Toyota LandCruiser have been fierce rivals since both Japanese brands started building their own ‘Jeeps’ in the second half of the 1950s. Now, as they both mark 70 years of their respective nameplates, Toyota has graced us with an all-new LandCruiser in the form of the 300 Series – the first new Cruiser in more than 14 years.

It’s only fitting then that we pitch it up against its traditional foe, the current model Y62 Nissan Patrol. While the Cruiser might be new, the Patrol is more than 10 years old now, and even though there has been a few facelifts and upgrades over that time, it’s still essentially the same package – and that’s a good thing.

What we have here is the top-of-the-range Nissan Patrol Ti-L which sells for $93,365, up against the similarly specified LandCruiser Sahara at $130,190. The Sahara used to be the top-spec model in the Cruiser range, but now there are both the GR Sport and the Sahara ZX model above it, topping out at $138,790.

TOYOTA LANDCRUISER

300 SAHARA

POWERTRAIN & PERFORMANCE

ALL LandCruiser 300s are powered by a 3.3-litre twin-turbo V6 diesel engine that makes 700Nm of torque and 227kW of power, so it has higher outputs than the old V8 diesel engine.

An interesting thing about the design of this engine is that it is a ‘HotV’ design. This means that the exhaust manifolds and the turbochargers are mounted in the V between the cylinder heads, and the intake manifolds are on the outside of the engine. This helps to make the engine more compact and puts the turbochargers closer to the exhausts ports to reduce lag.