Season 2 Episode 121 - Have You Heard? The All New 2025 Nissan Armada

 

The following transcription of The Truck Show Podcast was generated using a speech recognition software, and will contain errors. Please review the timestamp and listen to the corresponding audio for accuracy. 

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Sean P. Holman (0s):

Hey, Lightning, Have, You, Heard.

Recording (2s):

No. I said no. You can kill all that right now. Like at this moment. Stop.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9s):

No, I haven’t.

Intro (11s):

The truck show. We’re gonna show you what we know. We’re gonna answer What? The truck, Because truck rides with The truck show. We have the lifted We. have the lowered and everything in between. We’ll talk about trucks that run on diesel and the ones that run on gasoline. The truck show, The truck show, The truck show. Whoa Whoa. It’s The truck show with your hosts Lightning and Holman.

Sean P. Holman (48s):

This episode of The Truck Show Podcast Have You Heard is proudly presented by Nissan with the Frontier Titan and Titan Xd. Nissan has a truck for every need, along with the legendary Nissan durability. Test Drive. your next truck at a local Nissan dealer today, Or point your browser to Nissan usa dot com where you can use the build and price tool to configure a Nissan truck that fits your lifestyle.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 8s):

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Sean P. Holman (1m 31s):

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Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 1s):

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Sean P. Holman (2m 22s):

Hey, Lighting, I know you haven’t heard this. Oh,

Intro (2m 25s):

Hell no.

Sean P. Holman (2m 28s):

And that’s because it’s, oh,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 29s):

Because it’s

Intro (2m 31s):

Fargo.

Sean P. Holman (2m 33s):

Well, technically by the time you hear this, it’s not, but it is now. So we’re going to call up a friend, Brent Hagen over at Nissan, and we’re gonna talk about an all new Nissan vehicle that just got announced.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 45s):

The Armada sh Why are you saying shush? We’re they can hear us

Sean P. Holman (2m 49s):

All right. We’ll call him. Okay.

Recording (2m 55s):

Hey guys,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 56s):

Is this one Mr. Brent Hagen. It’s Lightning at home at Truck Show podcast. What’s

Brent Hagan (2m 60s):

Going on guys?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 1s):

How you doing? Well,

Sean P. Holman (3m 2s):

Long time no see or, oh,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 4s):

Here,

Sean P. Holman (3m 5s):

Wait a minute. I may have been on a super secret location with Brent

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 10s):

Hagen. Wait a minute. Is that what you, where you called me from the other day? Yes. You were like, and it was kind of echoey. Yes. You wouldn’t say what you were doing. Right. You were like, I’m somewhere right now. I’m like, why did you call just to tease me? Because Brandon, he literally called me from your place, wherever that was. And just to tease me, I was like, what’s up with that? That’s not cool.

Brent Hagan (3m 28s):

I, I can’t believe he did that to you.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 30s):

Yes, you can. So you, you know Sean and he can, yes. All right. So it does, we,

Sean P. Holman (3m 35s):

We have Brent Hagen on who is gonna talk to us about the currently embargoed, but by the time you hear this, the embargo would have been lifted.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 44s):

So wait, I’m confused. The embargo embargo is no more.

Sean P. Holman (3m 48s):

Well, when you’re listening to this, it’s no more. Currently you can’t talk about it far. You’re under an NDA right now. I mean I am,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 54s):

Yes.

Sean P. Holman (3m 54s):

We’re

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 55s):

Bringing you Did I sign something when I walked into the project?

Sean P. Holman (3m 57s):

We’re bringing you into the circle of trust. This is all verbal right now.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 0s):

So if I, if I burst into like, like a diatribe about how amazing the Armada is, I could, I could do that now and I don’t get in trouble. Yes.

Sean P. Holman (4m 8s):

Well, once you leave the studio door, Brent Hagen has a whole closet full of lawyers who will come after you.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 14s):

I wonder how many lawyers you can fit in a closet. Is it a It’s gotta be a big closet.

Brent Hagan (4m 19s):

It is a big massive closet.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 22s):

Are you going to tell us what you experienced or is that for another episode? No,

Sean P. Holman (4m 26s):

No, that’s for now. So that’s for now. So here’s what we’re gonna do. So I got a phone call saying, Hey, we’ve got a certain property at this top secret location in Southern California and Brent Hagen would like to video conference with you around this property and give you a walkthrough of our brand new property. Okay. And it turned out to be the all new Nissan Armada.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 49s):

Nice. And

Sean P. Holman (4m 50s):

It’s freaking awesome.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 52s):

Okay. Are you gonna tell me about it now? No. That’s

Sean P. Holman (4m 55s):

Why we repeat it out of you. No, that’s why we have Brent on

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 57s):

The phone. Well, okay. I don’t know what to ask. I’m literally, I don’t, I haven’t seen it. I don’t know anything about it. That’s

Sean P. Holman (5m 1s):

True. He, he has not seen it. I was gonna put up a photo of it. I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 4s):

Mean, what do you want me to say? Does it have four wheels? I haven’t seen it. I don’t even know where to start. Alright,

Sean P. Holman (5m 8s):

I’m putting up a photo on the, on The Truck Show Podcast tv here. Okay. So our, our man Lightning sh will be able to, to see it while Brent Yes, please. You walk us through the nitty gritty ’cause. Yes, Nissan is a sponsor of the show and we get some special access from time to time. And this was one of those times where they invited me out to see something that’s coming out soon. And it was the brand new Nissan Armada. And I will tell you from the second I saw it, I was blown away as far as full-size SUVs go. This thing is incredible. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 38s):

Now let me ask you this, are you comparing it to the old Armada? Are you comparing it to I

Sean P. Holman (5m 43s):

To other No, I’m to anything out there. Okay.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 44s):

So everything else that’s up against in the market? Yes. Alright.

Sean P. Holman (5m 47s):

Yes. And it is awesome.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 49s):

Alright. He’s pulling it up on the pod, Chad Studio tv. What? That’s not what I expected.

Sean P. Holman (5m 58s):

So the one on the left is their brand new off-Road package. That’s the Pro Fourex. Okay. Which hasn’t been offered in the Armada before. And on the right is the Platinum Reserve, which is the hi Zoo Luxo version and the

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 10s):

Lightning boujee version. And,

Sean P. Holman (6m 11s):

And Nissan won’t tell you this, but I’m gonna tell you this, the Armada and its brethren within the company patrol and the Infinity, we’re all based on the same platform. But there the, our motto is a little bit of a different, like, like a sub cousin to the other ones. This is the Global patrol So. we finally get that, which means we also get the off-road capability that comes with it. La you know, you look at like Land Cruiser, right? Toyota’s basically abandoned the full size Land Cruiser market. They came out with the Land Cruiser prodo, they called it Land Cruiser. Here. If you want a real Land cruiser that competes with the prodo overseas, you have to buy the Lexus LX 600, which doesn’t have the off-Road stuff. Nissan came in and said, oh, okay, hold our beer, beer, hold beer. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 52s):

How, okay, so Brent, can you tell us the genesis of this, the new Armada? Like how did it come to be?

Brent Hagan (6m 59s):

Yeah, I mean Sean kind of buried the lead there. Honestly, we, we, we’ve been discussing the next generation patrol and Armada for quite some time, and the consensus in the organization was we need to bring these together, you know, we here from consumers here in the US and say, well, why can’t I get the, the bits of the patrol? Why can’t I get the, you know, the, the rear locking diff, why can’t I get some of those, you know, items? And we said, okay, fine, we’re gonna redo this. Let’s make it one model. We sell it globally as the patrol, we sell it in the US as the armada, but you know, we have everything that you have available on the patrol is now available on the arm. Armada. That was the genesis. And then the, the cherry on top, we heard from him, why when are we getting a pro fourex?

Brent Hagan (7m 39s):

Right? We did Pro Fourex for Titan, we’ve done pro Fourex for Frontiers. Wildly popular people love it. Why aren’t we getting a pro Fourex? So obviously those, you know, those are the big news that we have for this is it’s gonna be the same as the Gold Patrol. We could talk about all the specs and features, but it’s the same. And then we’ve got a Pro four x.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 55s):

Here’s what I noticed immediately is that the, you’ve got two trucks in this photo that we’re looking at now, the one that is facing us, the model that’s dead, right? I’m looking square in its eyes, it familiar to me because it looks like a larger frontier, which I loved when you guys redid the face of the frontier.

Sean P. Holman (8m 12s):

So notice the three slots that are at the top of the grill. Okay? So those are similar to the 25 Frontier that have that old hard body look. Oh. So Nissan is now making that design language on vehicles that have the off-road capability. They’ll have those kinda leading edge, top of the grill, leading edge hood slots. And so the grills are different between the Platinum Reserve and the Pro four X. You can see the Pro four X has a more aggressive look. Yeah,

Brent Hagan (8m 35s):

You, you definitely hit on it. We have 70 years of history building SUVs globally and So, we wanna bring some of those historical elements in, you know, the, the Easter eggs if you will. So the, there’s three thought on the grill as a harkens back to the first generation pathfinder that we had here in the us. The hard body, as you mentioned, several iterations of that. Then on the same thing on the Platinum Reserve, you’ll notice the two bars that go across the front. That’s actually, you know, a tip of the cap to the first generation patrol and the second generation patrol. They had, the first generation that we had starting in, in the mid fifties had a dual bar that went across. Then we went the second generation that started in the sixties and it had a single bar that went across the grill. So those, both of those are a tip of the cap to the historical, you know, Nissan models.

Sean P. Holman (9m 15s):

All right. And Brent, while you’re talking about it, I’m gonna, I’m gonna throw some photos up to illustrate what you’re talking about it or I’ll throw up some photos to illustrate as you’re talking about, so Lightning can see exactly what you’re referring to. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 26s):

Do you wanna start at the nose of the, the Armada? Yeah. So, and talk about the, we’ll start at Facia. Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (9m 32s):

Let’s start at the Platinum Reserve and we’ll do the exterior. Okay. Then we’ll go to the interior and then we’ll go to chassis if that works for you, Brent.

Brent Hagan (9m 38s):

Yeah, that works great.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 39s):

Okay, so I’m looking at the front, the dls very kind of, you’ve seen something similar in the frontier. They’re kind of like

Sean P. Holman (9m 48s):

More so Titan, I would say.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 49s):

Oh yeah, Titan. Yes. Correct. Where they’re kind of like, it’s an E shape, like a squared off E and they’re facing each other

Sean P. Holman (9m 56s):

Two C clamps. I would two

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 57s):

Oh C clamps. I like that. It’s a better description. But now you carried that same design language into, can you scroll down just a little bit? Holman, where you’ve got the proximity sensors lower below the grill, the same design language goes across and I, I find that really cool and then it sets in right where the license plate’s gonna be. Well, in the case of me, I’m not putting a license plate there, but

Brent Hagan (10m 19s):

Yeah, I mean you hit on it. So those, the dual C clamps is what we call that. And actually those tie in, if you look on the Platinum reserve, it ties into the two bars that go across the grill. So kind of connects everything together, gives you a really, really wide broad view. And, and hearkens back to, you know, frontier and, and Titan has that same DNA across the vehicles.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 37s):

Let’s go across the side. Really good at the wheels. I don’t know what they look like twenties to me. It’s hard to say on

Brent Hagan (10m 43s):

The Platinum Reserve. Those are 20 twos. 20 twos.

Sean P. Holman (10m 45s):

Dang.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 46s):

He’s my man.

Sean P. Holman (10m 46s):

No, look, but look how big the I mean. It looks,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 48s):

That just says how big of a vehicle this

Sean P. Holman (10m 50s):

Is. Yeah, it’s, it’s massive. And the fact that it has big wheels that, you know, the, the tires don’t look underwhelming on it, which is incredible considering what a monster this thing is so much room on the inside and I know we’ll get to it, but I know that you guys also improved the accommodations on, on the inside. So we’re walking around the side. Oh by the way, Lightning, you’ll notice that the fender vents that are on this, those are real, they’re actual actually functional. So well done. People who want to do snorkels and things like that. One is actually the air intake and what’s the other one, Brent?

Brent Hagan (11m 22s):

Yeah, driver’s size air intake. And then the, the passenger side is an, is a is a vent. So yeah, if they wanna put a snorkel, they can put it on the driver’s side.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 29s):

But don’t you understand as an automotive manufacturer that those are supposed to be fake. They’re not supposed to do anything. They’re just supposed to be for looks.

Sean P. Holman (11m 36s):

No, they won. No, I know

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 37s):

They do. They were, so wait, go back to the side profile really quick here. How do you describe these lines? Because these have the lines of the ADA show it in motion. Holman, what do you, how do you describe this line back here where it show it’s, it’s like

Sean P. Holman (11m 51s):

A, well, so there it’s a, the belt line’s really flat. Yes. But then at, before the D pillar, it kicks up at about a, so

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 57s):

It’s like a wing,

Sean P. Holman (11m 58s):

A 45 degree angle and then it gets flat again before touching the roof. So kind of the color looks sort of like a dolphin or a shark fin. And then the roof and glass and everything above that chrome line at the body line or waistline is all black, but it’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 10s):

Swooped back. Yeah. As if it’s in motion and it’s like a, I think it looks cool airplane.

Sean P. Holman (12m 16s):

It’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 17s):

A center wing on an airplane,

Sean P. Holman (12m 18s):

Vertical stabilizer. Thank you. It’s always tough on a vehicle that has a very flat, tall side to make it look athletic. And I think, you know, the new armada looks really athletic.

Brent Hagan (12m 29s):

Yeah, I appreciate it. There. There’s two, a couple, a couple elements there that the design team went into. One is the floating roof. So you kind of talked about how the D pillar kicks up, but then it’s segmented off and so you either have a two-tone painted roof or it’s a, a floating roof design. And then also you’ve got the kind of shoulder line that goes lower from the back all the way to the front. And we creates what we call the kind of anti wedge design. So instead of it being a wedge, like a sports car, that kinda comes to, to a point in the front, this is the opposite. It gives you a in motion read, but also kind of a, a bigger handsome masculine stance.

Sean P. Holman (13m 1s):

You know what’s funny is people will look at this and they might go, oh I see a little bit of maybe Range Rover, which isn’t a bad thing, but what I see is different. The floating roof idea and where the A pillar comes and then the roof was sort of capped really that was started on the GTR, the current generation, what, 15 years ago. I feel like most of the manufacturers since then have stolen it for SUVs and trucks and things like that. And so you see a lot of that design language, but the GTR was like one of the very first vehicles that had that kind of floating roof over the windshield. And what I’m seeing is Nissan refining that idea here on the Armada.

Brent Hagan (13m 39s):

Yeah, very well said. Absolutely true.

Sean P. Holman (13m 40s):

So we’re gonna move to, I’m gonna show Lightning a picture of a Nissan GTR so he can see what I’m talking about with the kind of the floating roof. The floating roof idea where there was blacked out a pillars and the roof floated above the body work and that was started on the GTR. Oh I see. And everybody’s done it since then and they, everybody attributes it to other manufacturers. Ford’s done it with Explorer and some of their vehicles. Range rovers done it. A bunch of different ones, but it really started with Nissan sports cars. And so that’s sort of, you know, that’s what I see. So I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 10s):

Feel like this hearkens back to what the episode was, I don’t know, a couple dozen ago where you were talking about all the Nissan first. That would surprised us. It was like Nissans had so many firsts,

Sean P. Holman (14m 18s):

How spray and bedliners, how about the adjustable utility track rails? How about the first one in a modern truck to really have embed storage when they had on the first generation titan back in, what was it, 2004 or so with the, the storage behind the rear Wheel. This was, that was Brent’s baby as well. The convex and concave towing mirrors that appeared on Titan was stolen by other manufacturers. I believe it was actually a Nissan patent that was, was they ripped off the patent that was ripped off by other manufacturers. I don’t know if can nod or not dirty, but I can dirty tell you, I’ve heard stories about that. So there’s a lot of innovation. So Brent

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 54s):

Is straight quiet, usually silent here.

Brent Hagan (14m 57s):

I’m smiling over here. I’m just, you know, I, I appreciate Sean’s, Sean’s knowledge. He was stealing a lot of this from me because absolutely we’re quite proud, a lot of that innovation but we don’t get quite good credit for it. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 7s):

Then Brent, let’s swivel around to the backside, looking at the, the tailgate. Talk us through.

Brent Hagan (15m 12s):

Yeah, so when you set that same c clamp design from the headlamps is now inverted and obviously in the rear. So you get that the dual C clamps that go across and the tail lamps for pro four X and platinum reserve. You’ve got LED strip that goes the whole full width of the tailgate that connects that, that in for platinum reserve. You’ve got, you know, bright chrome and, and satin chrome accents across the, the side and the back there. We’ll get to it on pro fourex but everything’s blacked out on pro fourex. Yeah. So and then, and then one of the big things that we have is kind of cleaning up the back, the back read and the back view. So, we got rid of the wiper arm, we moved it, tucked it up under the, the spoiler. So you got a spoiler there for a better fuel economy. But then it also gives it a nice hiding point for the windshield wiper

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 55s):

Arm. It’s funny, I would not even have called that. I didn’t see the wiper at all. Look how

Sean P. Holman (15m 59s):

Clean it looks when it’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 60s):

Out there and it’s, so it’s coming down from the top instead of right above the Nissan logo at the bottom. You ever see those so many vehicles driving around with a piece of painter’s tape? Oh yeah. Holding it down So it doesn’t like the car wash.

Sean P. Holman (16m 9s):

Yeah, the car wash. Well that’s what they do is they stick the tape on it when you go through the automatic car wash so it doesn’t get ripped off

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (16m 13s):

And people don’t, they don’t take it off. They don’t take it off. They just drive it on for weeks. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (16m 15s):

All right, so Brent, I’m moving to the Pro four X exterior. So the Pro four X is now up on the screen for Lightning to see.

Brent Hagan (16m 23s):

Yeah, so you get a completely different look for Pro Forex, not only from a color perspective but you got a unique grill. The headlamps are blocked out. So unique headlamps, you’ve got a unique front fascia that gives not only a different look and appearance and ability for the skid plate to be there, but then also improves the approach angle. So you have 34 degrees of approach angle there in the front with that you’ve got a metal skid plate, tow hooks, you can see the lava red tow hooks and lava red accents throughout the vehicle on the Nissan badge, on the tow hooks on the interior as well. On the back D pillar, you’ve got the Armada logo that is in the lava red as well. So a completely more rugged, more adventurous look kind of moving to the side. I don’t know if you guys are looking at the side yet, but moving to the side, you’ve got over fenders, you’ve got The, All, terrain tires, completely different unique Wheel 20 inch Wheel for the Pro Fourex So, we really tried to make not only the color and the look different but actually function different as well.

Brent Hagan (17m 14s):

I mean, again we talked about a moment ago, this is the goal Patrol pro Fourex will be unique to the US but it has to deliver all of that 70 years of heritage of the king of all terrains. It’s gotta deliver that here in the US and you know, it’s unique for our market. So not only the look of it but also the function as well.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (17m 32s):

I don’t recall seeing a front end have that approach. Angle I mean it’s dramatic when you see it from the side, it really kicks up under the grill going towards the, the front wheels. So

Sean P. Holman (17m 42s):

The other thing that I wanna bring up is not only does the Armada have a completely unique front fascia, but again going back to Brent talking about the lava red accents like on the Nissan badge So, we, when we had him back on back in, geez I, whenever the Pro four x Titan and Frontier came out, he had talked about this back then. Well at that time there was a big battle inside Nissan. The color of the company’s logo had never been changed before for a product, not even a GTR, which is like the, the holy grail. If you can do anything to any Nissan product, it’s the GTR that would get that nod. They would go, that’s the car that does it. That’s the icon. That’s the halo their team was able to convince, you know, management essentially, no, this, we need this to stand out.

Sean P. Holman (18m 26s):

So they have this lava red accent. Well now you’re noticing not only was it on the, you know, pro four X Titan and then the Pro four X Frontier, but now it’s coming other places. I believe maybe the Rock Creek edition like Path Pathfinder I think has it and the new Rock Creek version of the Murano or the Rogue, one of ’em I think has it now you’re seeing it on the Pro four X here on Armada. So it’s so successful that they’ve decided that this is gonna be a signature of their off-road package.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (18m 54s):

Is it? No Brenda, is it no longer a, a battle is it now? Like they’re just, everyone loves it and they’re just running with it and you guys get no credit.

Brent Hagan (19m 2s):

It’s now a global standard. I mean it’s one of those things that we innovated here in the region here in the US and then now they’re doing, they brought Pro Forex to other markets they got on the Navarra. So yeah, it’s absolutely no longer a fight. But it was I mean. Sean’s absolutely correct. It was a, it was a big discussion to get that signature element and now it’s so wildly popular that it’s, it’s global.

Sean P. Holman (19m 22s):

How cool is that? Yeah, this is also, you’ll notice it on the D pillar where it was Chrome. Now you can see that no matter what color the pro Forex comes in, the chrome piece on the D pillar that talks about that has the, the break between the body color and the roof or the floating roof is lava red on the pro four X. That kind of gives the exterior a little different pop as well.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19m 44s):

The wheels look aftermarket, the wheels do not look oe meaning, and that’s a compliment.

Sean P. Holman (19m 49s):

Well by, by the way, our man Brent is also we’ll have him back on to talk about 25 Frontier. You and I both fell in love with the wheels that are on that thing. Nissan is killing it with wheels right now.

Brent Hagan (19m 59s):

Who’s,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19m 59s):

Thank you. Who’s at the helm there doing that? Brent? Like is there one guy going rogue in the Wheel development department? Like what artist is having free reign?

Brent Hagan (20m 7s):

There’s actually a couple folks, but yeah, The truck team has really run out of the, the design studio in, in San Diego and they do a fantastic bang up job in the wheels on Frontier and others. They’ve knocked it outta the park. I have to completely agree with you guys.

Sean P. Holman (20m 21s):

I’m gonna move to the interior and we’ll start with the Platinum Reserve interior. ’cause I think my photo set for the Lighting is a little bit better. I was completely blown away with the interior. It is for its price class is, it is one of the best interiors of any of the full-size SUVs. It’s got the dual displays, so it’s very familiar with like my Aria dashboard. But just the, the materials, the look I mean just shutting the, everything in

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (20m 54s):

There. Everything is wrapped in leather.

Sean P. Holman (20m 55s):

It’s so quiet when you shut the door, it’s like you hear the door And then there nothing, is

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21m 0s):

It dual pane glass?

Sean P. Holman (21m 2s):

Laminated? Laminated, yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21m 3s):

Okay.

Sean P. Holman (21m 3s):

Yep.

Brent Hagan (21m 4s):

You laminated a glass and

Sean P. Holman (21m 5s):

It’s got lots of sound deadening. I didn’t get a chance to drive it yet or anything like that, but just sitting in this warehouse being able to touch the buttons and play with stuff, I was like, man, this thing is cavernous and there’s no noise in here Brent.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21m 17s):

I’m always curious and I don’t know we go on, take this on a tangent, but like sound deadening, the manufacturers typically would just put a little tiny square of sound ending material on the outer panel of the doors and such just to stop some residents. At what point do you convince them to add more and more and more? So it really gives you that silent, luxurious feel when you’re on the road because it every, it, it all costs.

Brent Hagan (21m 42s):

Yeah. I mean it, not only does it cost money, but it also costs mass, right? And masses fuel economy at the end of the day. So it’s a trade off that you have to overcome when you add mass. You have to find other ways to offset it with, you know, making the vehicle more sleek from an aerodynamic perspective, re reducing mass and cost in other areas. But when we, when we plan a new vehicle like this, we set targets, Hey, we wanna be leader in the segment on quietness. So when we set out, we say, listen, we, we need to overachieve and the customer expectation when it comes to quietness, this is a family vehicle. This is, you know, this is a high income individual’s vehicle that somebody’s gonna be, you know, executive driving home in it. They want a sanctuary in that vehicle.

Brent Hagan (22m 22s):

So they’re gonna, you know, they, they expect that level of quietness above just from traditional everyday SUV. And so when we, we set that target and then the engineering team goes to work and they’re putting in laminated glass, they’re putting in sound bending throughout the doors, they’re isolating the engine, they’re putting active noise cancellations. One of the things we added this vehicle is active noise cancellation. Right? So, so when you’re on the interstate, you’re on the highway, it helps to limit the road noise and the wind noise using the stereo and amplifiers actually is listening and then putting a, you know, a sound wave out as 180 degrees out of phase to limit and minimize some of the other road noises. So it’s really, we looked at it as a true sanctuary, not just from the size and the comforts and the technology, but also, you know, from quietness.

Sean P. Holman (23m 8s):

Like when you get in this thing, it’s got this tall hip point, H point, which is the, the cushion of the driver’s seat, the hide off the ground, you step into this thing and up into it and you have this commanding presence and it’s, it’s awesome. Lots of glass, good visibility. If you notice on this picture of the interior, the trailer brake controller off to the right and we’ll talk about capability here in a minute. You got the dual displays, what are these? 13 inch

Brent Hagan (23m 34s):

Dual, 14.3 inch displays. Dang.

Sean P. Holman (23m 36s):

So dual 14. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 38s):

Up to by 1.3.

Sean P. Holman (23m 39s):

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And if you look the, the air registers are because the dash is tall enough, they’re not gonna hit your hand. You know, like it’s gonna go out into the air where we’re like, for example, we talked about the Chevy Colorado, the screen’s so big that they had to put the vents really low and with your hands on the shifter, it’s all over your hand. Right. Also note that the origami style pattern on the seat, I’m

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (24m 3s):

Glad you got to that. Yeah, because it, I was gonna say diamond, but diamond’s wrong.

Sean P. Holman (24m 5s):

No, it’s similar to the floor mats on my aria. It’s, it’s kinda a diamond pattern but it’s done in a way to invoke think oh I know how to do it. Remember the old video game Cubert? Yes. That’s, he was jumping on the squares. Yes. That’s cubert, that’s it’s, that’s cubert pattern.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (24m 18s):

Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (24m 18s):

Yeah. And it’s super cool. And it also noticed it’s a tritone interior So. this is the tan interior, but it also has like a saddle brown leather and it also has black on top of that. So there’s a lot of tones and the steering wheel’s also the new Nissan corporate steering Wheel. And so the touch controls are capacitive on it and it’s pretty cool too.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (24m 38s):

I could also tell it’s got fat grips that

Sean P. Holman (24m 41s):

Hugely fat grip. It feels appropriate for the size of the vehicle.

Brent Hagan (24m 44s):

The platinum reserve comes in three different colors. So you’ve got a charcoal with espresso, which may be the one you’re looking at. You’ve got a, an almond with chai, so a tan, kind of a almond type interior and then a chestnut with rye. So a browns, so you got three different colors to choose from. And then as you mentioned, the dual 14 screens, you’ve got a trailer brake controller, you’ve got all of your controls right there in the center, easy to reach. You even got piano key So. we actually changed the shifter design. We went away from a, a console mounted shifter or a column mounted shifter. And we went with a kind of piano key design that makes it very easy to maneuver and touch So. we tried to simplify, make packaging easier in the center console, make it comfortable, make it beautiful, make it aesthetically pleasing from every angle.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (25m 25s):

Looks like you’ve got a lot of controls in the back of the center console for the rear passengers.

Sean P. Holman (25m 29s):

Also note the awesomely comfortable second row captain’s chairs available. I saw that. Yeah, that’s pretty, pretty nice. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (25m 35s):

This has the third row or no?

Sean P. Holman (25m 37s):

Yep. So third row and there also has ambient Lighting there Oh my

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (25m 42s):

Gosh. On under the, under the, the side door panels.

Sean P. Holman (25m 45s):

This is the dash but yeah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (25m 46s):

That’s the dash. Okay,

Sean P. Holman (25m 47s):

Got it. Yeah, so there’s ambient Lighting, LED Lighting that’s configurable. So you can change it to different colors. You kinda see it there coming out under the dash.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (25m 54s):

Can I synchronize it with my music?

Sean P. Holman (25m 57s):

I don’t know about that.

Brent Hagan (25m 58s):

You can do that, but you can synchronize it with your profile assist system. So you can have, you know, when you’re in pilot one, which is our hands-on system, it’ll be green. And when you’re ready to go to to hands off profile at 2.1 you it’ll actually turn blue. So you’re driving and I actually will synchronize with, with your driving mode.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (26m 16s):

That’s

Sean P. Holman (26m 16s):

Cool. All right. So then you see the, the console, how everything’s laid out. They’ve got the drive modes obviously park

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (26m 23s):

Reverse neutral drive and it is manual

Sean P. Holman (26m 26s):

Just like

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (26m 26s):

It, like piano keys, it’s left to right instead of up and down. It’s got

Sean P. Holman (26m 29s):

The shifters on it. You see the paddle shifters. So when you’re in manual mode you can control those there. Oh also look at the little cubby hole here and you can kind of see the sand dune pattern that’s in on the mat that’s inside there. Oh I see that. Yeah, that’s kind of cool. And then

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (26m 43s):

I love all the piano black, it looks really rich.

Sean P. Holman (26m 45s):

So I wanna take you to the interior of the pro four X ’cause it’s a completely different vibe. Oh

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (26m 50s):

What the heck? That’s, oh and he ties in all the lava.

Sean P. Holman (26m 54s):

Lava black and lava red. Yeah, lava, lava red, red stitching, contrast stitching as well as white contrast stitching. And then look at the cool wood on the dash. It’s like this vertical kind of gray vibe for this gray and black interior. And then there’s like a,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (27m 7s):

They they tied in the strip of Bert across the, yeah it looks like

Sean P. Holman (27m 10s):

It almost like a carbon fiber but

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (27m 12s):

It’s fabric fiber is Bert.

Sean P. Holman (27m 13s):

Yes. And so there’s a lot of detail into the interior that is absolutely just from the craftsmanship standpoint. You look at this and you’re like, man, this is beautiful.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (27m 21s):

Well there’s a lot of Easter eggs like at just at a quick glance you don’t notice it but then you, you look back and you go, wait a minute. That’s a pattern that ties in with the seats and the floors. And

Sean P. Holman (27m 28s):

So look at this pro fourex interior, how much different that is from ize from the Platinum Reserve

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (27m 34s):

Sporty. It’s

Sean P. Holman (27m 35s):

Like a business jet or something. Yeah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (27m 36s):

It does looks, oh yeah, that’s what the seats look like.

Sean P. Holman (27m 38s):

Alright, So, this is the cargo area with the rear seat folded down.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (27m 42s):

Okay. You could fit 25 dead bodies back there. That

Sean P. Holman (27m 45s):

Seems like 25 too many. You can you, it turns out you could fit at least two live bodies back there with the seats up.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (27m 52s):

What is the storage area in the back of the armada with the third row folded down. Brent.

Brent Hagan (27m 59s):

Yeah, I mean surprisingly we don’t use dead bodies as a unit measurement,

Sean P. Holman (28m 3s):

But

Brent Hagan (28m 5s):

We did, we we did grow and with the, with the third row up we grew at eight 28% behind the third row. So that usable space, when you were gonna put, you buy a big vehicle to put a lot of people in a lot of cargo. So when you, when you have it loaded up with seven or eight people, you’ve got 28% more cargo space behind the third row and right around 16% with behind the second row. So depending on which confi, no matter which configuration you’re looking, you get a lot more cargo space from the outgoing model plus more, more room for people in, you know, whether it be hip room, head room, leg room for the third row and second room So. we tried to grow that space for both people and cargo. ’cause at the end of the day this is a people and cargo mover

Sean P. Holman (28m 43s):

And it’s pretty flat with everything folded down. I’ve got pictures of just how much room there is behind the

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (28m 48s):

It looks gargantuan. Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (28m 49s):

With the third row up you still have a lot of room behind it and it’s the rear seat passengers you fit three across, not two fit three across. They get their own USBs cup holders air registers back there as well. And that way it just doesn’t, it doesn’t feel like you’re in the penalty box by any means. And those seats in the back are luxurious and under the floor you still get hidden cubby storage back there.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (29m 13s):

I’m seeing ports in the back too. Is that USB or power on the Yeah, left to right. So if you’ve got a, your mobile blender back there for tailgating, you can plug it right in.

Sean P. Holman (29m 23s):

Sure. Yep. Lighting.

Brent Hagan (29m 24s):

Yep. Yeah, us BBC’s for even for the third row,

Sean P. Holman (29m 29s):

It’s either two in the front, two in the second row with captains or three in the second row with a bench and then three in the back, right?

Brent Hagan (29m 36s):

Correct.

Sean P. Holman (29m 37s):

Alright, let’s talk about chassis capability and the fact that you got a really powerful V six that runs on regular fuel but gets a bump if you decide you want to throw a premium down, its down its throat.

Brent Hagan (29m 51s):

Yeah. So 425 horsepower with 87 Octane. That’s what it’s rated for. You know if you want to use premium fuel max, you get maximum performance outta that one. But we’re rating it 4 25 horsepower on 87 Octane. It’s our VR 35 DDTT. So it’s based on, you know, you’re talking about the GTR there a few minutes ago. This is this the engine family, same VR engine family as the GTR. It’s not the exact same motor. There are some borrowed components and shared, but that same technology, that same heartbeat in the in Godzilla is here in the, in the armada as well.

Sean P. Holman (30m 23s):

So the idea was when they were deciding to go away from the V eight, obviously they wanted to have a burley engine, they wanted to have something that was a little bit more fuel efficient. So turbocharge V six isn’t uncommon for the class. Now obviously there’s some competitors with with that, but what they did was they went to the Godzilla engine family and then they made it for truck duty. ’cause this is one of the, if if there’s one engine within all of Nissan’s entire Motor family, this engine is the one that has been tested the most in terms of durability, thermal management, they know the most, racing all those things. And then they put that as the starting point for the engine in here. And one of the things that I don’t, I don’t know, maybe we can’t talk about it, but they did start it up and move it and so I’ll just tell you, it sounds good.

Sean P. Holman (31m 7s):

It sounds really good. It doesn’t sound like a V six, it has more of a, a deeper throw to your sound. And I’ve said it on this podcast before a bunch of times no company in all of automotive Dom knows how to tune a V six to sound good except, except Nissan. Have we

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (31m 20s):

Asked Brent about this before? Like what is the secret sauce? Why are you guys the only ones who can do it?

Brent Hagan (31m 26s):

Yeah, I, I can’t say why we’re the only ones who do it, but there’s a proud Harry there. I mean the three 50 Z is one of the best sounding sports cars, period V sixes for sure. Even on our affinity brand vehicles like the G 35. G

Sean P. Holman (31m 38s):

35 is an awesome stock.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (31m 40s):

I mean, look Brett, when a Raptor rolls by you, do you laugh? Do you like literally just chuckle and go, man they screwed it,

Sean P. Holman (31m 46s):

It doesn’t sound anywhere near as good as the Nissan v sixes.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (31m 52s):

No comment. I can

Brent Hagan (31m 53s):

Tell you that I i i no comment. But I can tell you that wasn’t our target With regular fuel 516 pound feet of torque, 4 25 horsepower. It is a monster. You know, we tow 8,500 pounds is the max tail across all the grades. It doesn’t matter whether you buy an SV grade or you’re gonna buy a platinum reserve or you’re ride pro X 8,500 pounds across all of them and that motor, it gives you great fuel economy. We’re not gonna talk about that, but it’s paired with our nine speed transmission, great, great performance. Whether it be acceleration, you know, on the streets, acceleration, you know, running up a dune in the sand or towing a big trailer, no doubt about it.

Sean P. Holman (32m 28s):

So the, I I won’t, I won’t, I won’t spoil anything in case Brent can’t say this, the, the other vehicle that uses the same engine on premium gets 450 horsepower and if you put premium in this one, there’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (32m 44s):

Sch infinity.

Sean P. Holman (32m 44s):

Yeah, you get, you get that too. So you get the best of both worlds. You get plenty of power on on 87, which is, which is awesome. But if you, if you want to throw something in there, you get, you get a little, you get a little more, you get a little more. So that’s pretty cool.

Brent Hagan (32m 58s):

Yeah, I’m, I’m gonna plead the fifth on that one. Okay.

Sean P. Holman (33m 1s):

Yeah, I don’t, I don’t even know what the, what the torque is, but I know that there’s been some testing on the, the other one. So the sister product zero to 60 and 5.3 seconds. That’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (33m 13s):

Respectable.

Sean P. Holman (33m 13s):

So figure the armada’s gonna be right in that neighborhood. Okay. You know, sub six seconds, zero to 60 for something that tows 8,500 pounds by the way. Independent front, independent rear locking center diff basically rear locker, it’s got air suspension so you can lift it up for off-roading. It’s got different

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (33m 30s):

Modes. That is smart. That’s smart. So, so couple questions. One, when does it hit dealerships? Two, do we know the price and three, when can we spin around the block in one?

Brent Hagan (33m 44s):

Yeah, so I, I think the first one is the only one of those three maybe that I can answer at the moment. So before the end of the year there, the people will be seeing these in the, in the dealerships in the showrooms. So get ready for it as far as pricing can’t develop, you know, talk about pricing quite yet. Okay. That information will be coming even when we reveal the vehicle So, this is a, you know, post review. We still haven’t yet announced the pricing and then I I I’m not sure of the timing exactly when we’ll have opportunities, but we wanna get you guys in to drive one as soon as possible when we’re making that happen very soon. Alright, so

Sean P. Holman (34m 14s):

Brett Hagen from Nissan. Thanks for coming on and kind of giving us the, at least the virtual tour of the Pro four x. I know I got a little bit more intimate one, but for our truck show podcast listeners who want to see this, we will have pictures up when the embargo breaks so they’ll be up by the time you hear this episode. But Lightning, I, I, again, I I get it, Nissan’s our sponsor but I’m blown away, like blown away by what Brent and team were able to do with, with this vehicle. I’m really looking forward to doing some road trips in it. Oh

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (34m 46s):

Wait, you’ve gone so far as to insinuate that they’re gonna give you one long enough term that you’ll be able to do a road trip in it. Yes. Can I come

Sean P. Holman (34m 56s):

Negotiable?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (34m 58s):

Great. Like normal. Hey

Sean P. Holman (34m 60s):

Brent, you’re welcome. If you wanna come. Whatcha

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (35m 2s):

Doing? What? That’s what, what?

Sean P. Holman (35m 4s):

No, no, no. What I meant was he can come with us and then we can do the show

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (35m 8s):

From inside. That’s not what you meant at all. You meant like Lightning. We’ll stay at home and you’ll take Brent ’cause he is more fun. That’s true. That’s what I just heard.

Sean P. Holman (35m 13s):

That’s true. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (35m 15s):

Brent, you’re the man. Thank you for checking in with us and kind spilling the beans on the new Armada.

Brent Hagan (35m 19s):

Yeah, thanks so much guys. Really appreciate it. All

Sean P. Holman (35m 21s):

Right, we’re gonna have you back ’cause we gotta talk Frontier soon too. Alright.

Brent Hagan (35m 25s):

Looking forward to it. Always. Alright.

Sean P. Holman (35m 26s):

All right, thanks

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (35m 27s):

Brent. Talk soon. Thanks Brent.

Brent Hagan (35m 28s):

Alright, thanks guys. Bye.

Sean P. Holman (35m 29s):

Alright, well hopefully you guys enjoyed hearing about The. All new Nissan Armada. It’ll be out soon and head over to at Truck Show podcast and we will have some photos of it posted. Yeah

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (35m 41s):

Buddy.