After years of development, Nissan appears to be ready to present their new Navara-based SUV to the world.

Drive spoke to the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi’s light commercial vehicle division chief, Ashwani Gupta, at the 2017 Tokyo Motor Show, where he hinted that the vehicle’s unveiling is scheduled for the 2018 Beijing Motor Show, next April.

“Nissan is extremely competent on frame-based vehicles, frame-based trucks, and frame-based SUVs, and we are going to cover each and every segment of frame. Now when? I think you’ll have to wait a little bit longer, please wait a little bit longer to Beijing Motor Show”, Gupta said.

Coming to challenge the likes of the Ford Everest, Mitsubishi Pajero Sport, and Chevrolet Trailblazer, the as-of-yet-unnamed Nissan SUV (though we’ve heard it could be X-Terra) will serve as a replacement to the old Pathfinder.

As the leaked pictures show, it looks nearly identical to the latest NP300 Navara, but the biggest change will lie in the rear passenger compartment.

We will have to wait for Nissan to drop more details about their new body-on-frame SUV, but nevertheless, we expect it to be offered with 2WD and 4WD configurations. Powering it should be the same range of engines found in its pickup truck sibling, which will be mated to manual and automatic transmissions.

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