Toyota Tundra vs Nissan Navara

What's the difference?

The Toyota Tundra, made in America for Americans, was launched in 1999 and since then Toyota Australia has fielded a steady stream of enquiries from car buyers and automotive media about the possibility of its full-size US pickup being available in local showrooms.

Production of RHD Tundras at Toyota’s San Antonio plant in Texas never stacked up as a viable business case for Toyota until 2015, when the Walkinshaw Automotive Group (WAG) commenced OEM-certified right-hand-drive remanufacturing of Ram pick-up trucks (and later Chevrolet Silverados) in Melbourne.

This development finally opened the door to an ‘Australianised’ version of the Tundra, which went on sale late last year after a six-year joint development program with WAG that was a world-first for Toyota.

The Tundra’s local two-model range comprises the entry-level Limited and the new top-shelf Platinum grades, with more power and torque than local ‘1500 class’ US pickup rivals. So, we recently put the fresher Premium model to work for a week, to see how it measures up from a tradie’s perspective.

Developing a new motor vehicle from scratch costs billions which is why manufacturers are increasingly sharing vehicle platforms and technology to spread these ever-increasing costs across two (or more) strategically aligned automotive brands.

This ‘badge engineering’ strategy is becoming popular in the light-commercial vehicle (LCV) segment as evidenced by partnerships between Ford and Volkswagen with their Ranger/Amarok and Transit Custom/Transporter pairings, Isuzu and Mazda with their D-Max/BT-50 duo and Chinese contenders MG and LDV with their U9/Terron 9 tie-up.

Mitsubishi and Nissan have recently established a similar relationship, with Mitsubishi’s Triton donating its underpinnings for the latest Nissan Navara. We recently spent a week with Nissan’s new entry-level model grade to assess its credentials from a tradie’s perspective.