South Africans have a special affinity for their bakkies and when they get some extra swank, we like them even more.

Toyota has their Hilux GR Sport, Ford the Wildtrak X, Isuzu an Arctic Truck conversion on their D-Max, Mitsubishi the Triton Xtreme and now Nissan has the Navara PRO-4X Warrior.

It was jointly developed with Premar, an Australian engineering consultancy and second-tier manufacturing company in a joint venture with the Pretoria-based AIH group.

The arrangement allows them to operate from the Nissan factory in Rosslyn, Pretoria by taking it off the production line and then adding the Warrior goodies to it.

Exterior and interior

The exterior gets a more aggressive look with a blacked out grille, door handles, roof rack, side steps, 17-inch alloys under flares and red accents while inside the seats receive Warrior-banded black seats with red stitching.

The modified front bumper improves the approach angle by two degrees to 35 degrees with the departure angle still 27 degrees.

Under the skin

Most of the work though has been done to the suspension set-up.

It’s been upgraded to provide the Warrior with an increased ride height, improved springs and recalibrated dampers providing better wheel articulation.

With 275/65/R17 MAXXIS RAZR all-terrain tyres, the combination improves the ride height to 232mm over the standard PRO-4X’s 221mm and increases the track width by 30mm.

The rest of the Warrior is standard Navara fare.

Under the hood is a 2.5-litre turbo diesel engine with 140kW and 450Nm of torque coupled to a seven-speed automatic transmission with 4H, 4L and a rear difflock.

Inside there’s an eight-inch touchscreen infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a configurable seven-inch driver assist display and dual-zone climate control.

It’s not the most modern cabin in the business but everything you need is there and it’s easy to operate.