Next-gen Nissan Navara, Mitsubishi Triton to share platform, but developed separately – report

More details are coming out of the woodwork regarding Nissan’s impending purchase of a 34% stake in Mitsubishi, with Australian portal CarAdvice reporting that the next-generation Nissan Navara and Mitsubishi Triton will likely be built on the same platform.

Nissan CEO and chairman Carlos Ghosn explained the strategy, part of the company’s broader plans with Mitsubishi once the deal goes through, saying that the even though the two pick-up trucks will share a common architecture, they would be developed separately to suit their differing buyer profiles.

“[It’s] very possible that we are going to use the same platform, but we’re going to develop the cars differently because the customers are not the same,” he said. “But instead of two different platforms we can have them on the same platform but be completely different products. The cost of development and purchasing will be lower. A common platform, but different developments.”

Since these plans were likely still in their infancy, there were no other details on the platform or the powertrains – such as whether the former would be co-developed, and if the latter would also be common across both trucks. However, seeing as both the current NP300 Navara and Triton were only launched in 2014, the next generation aren’t expected to arrive until well beyond 2020.

Both the existing pick-ups are already part of several platform-sharing initiatives. The NP300 Navara will form the basis of upcoming trucks from both Mercedes-Benz and alliance partner Renault, the latter already previewed through the Renault Alaskan concept. Meanwhile, the current Triton is being sold in rebadged form as the Fiat Fullback in South America.

It won’t be the first time that the two companies announced a plan for the Nissan Navara and Mitsubishi Triton to share platforms. In 2010, both Nissan and Mitsubishi entered a joint venture that was supposed to see the two then-upcoming models be co-developed, but the partnership fell through and the two went their separate ways to build the NP300 Navara and Triton we see today.

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