The retro special edition tightrope is a tricky one to walk. Fall off, and you could get something insincere. Stay on, and you could have a minor hit like the Ford F-150 Heritage Edition. However, it turns out that there’s another way of traversing it — Nissan figured out how to do backflips on it. The 2024 Nissan Frontier Hardbody Edition throws things back to the 1980s in the best way possible as a tribute to the iconic Nissan Hardbody pickup, and I wholeheartedly adore it.
Back in the 1980s, Nissan was looking to replace the 720 pickup truck with something a little more evocative. The name chosen in America? Hardbody, probably chosen because it was a chiseled, tough-as-nails sex machine of a small pickup truck. Back in the day, it was the most handsome small truck on the market. These days, if you park an immaculate Hardbody next to the latest Ferrari, nobody will give a glance to the prancing horse. It’s just a damn good-looking, damn hardworking truck that I cannot say enough good things about. When you have an icon like this in your back catalog, it only makes sense to revive it.
The anchors of the 2024 Nissan Frontier Hardbody Edition are undoubtedly the amazing set of three-spoke alloy wheels, period-correct in style yet upsized to fit modern all-terrain rubber. This truck could’ve been a bust if Nissan didn’t commit to the wheel bit, but the follow-through here is impeccable. Adding to the ’80s flare is a tough set of flares and a skid plate, while the tubular design of the old-school sport bar in the bed is mirrored perfectly in the rock rails bolted to either side of the truck. Topping it all off is a blacked-out front end and a wicked set of graphics, because graphics were the absolute shit back in the 1980s. It all adds up to a truck with off-road looks that eschews tactical machismo for a bit of lighthearted fun. If there’s one thing the world could use more of in 2023, it’s lighthearted fun.
Of course, it also helps that the new Nissan Frontier is surprisingly good. Between the historically decent VQ family engine, minimal stuff to break, and solid construction, I feel like this is one truck that will last and last. A lack of turbochargers, hybrid assistance, and most other newfangled contraptions should satiate buyers looking for a stress-free long-term automotive relationship. Of course, the jury’s still out on the new nine-speed automatic transmission, but psychological security makes dropping serious coin on a new truck easier.
However, there’s sure to be contention over just how much coin Nissan is charging for the Frontier Hardbody. The automaker may have started with the relatively affordable SV trim, but this package adds $3,890 to a one-step-up-from-base 4×4 crew cab Frontier. Total price? $42,095 including a $1,335 freight charge. Yep, the Hardbody Edition is the second-most-expensive Frontier for the 2024 model year despite its utilitarian styling.
Yes, unique wheels are expensive to design, engineer, and make to OEM standards, but all the vinyl graphics can’t have cost an arm and a leg. In addition, the sport bar and mud flaps are already available from Nissan dealerships for every Frontier, and margins on accessories are often cushy. Nissan will need to find a very specific sort of buyer for this truck, but that might not be an issue.
Goddamn, if this isn’t a good-looking truck, I don’t know what is. It just hits all the right nostalgic spots including that anxiety-caused tightness in your neck you didn’t even realize you had. Suddenly, I have a craving for Frutopia and Dunkaroos, miss G4 more than usual, and want to throw on some Sum 41. I’m not old enough to have ‘80s nostalgia, but Nissan Hardbody trucks were everywhere in the 2000s and they absolutely ruled. Sure, putting on the rose-tinted glasses of cherry-picked memories is a cheap drug, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t work sometimes. The 2024 Nissan Frontier Hardbody Edition is awesome, and I hope Nissan sells so many that it become a permanent trim.
(Photo credits: Nissan)
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Call me when they do the Desert Runner edition
I hate everything except for my brown, pre-OBD, manual transmission station wagon, but this is brilliant.
Ford, if you’re paying attention (and given how extremely online Mike Levine is, they might just be), this is how you dust off old minitruck stuff, not the Ranger Splash which has perilously low levels of bright yellow and teal.
Also, my father-in-law used to have a series of Hardbodies, drives a Frontier now. He doesn’t really need a new truck, but maybe I can convince him he needs a new truck.
Other than the wheels and in this case the color, I don’t see the tie in to the Hardbody at all, which I agree was/is a great looking truck. This doesn’t look anything like the OG, and other than some black tape (which the OG doesn’t have and looks the better for it) I just don’t see the correlation.
And jeez louise, why is everything a 4 dr? An extra cab is all I’ll bet most buyers need in their truck…..I would love to have a 2wd extra cab – even a hybrid for the mileage – but I really don’t want/need/like the looks of these 4 dr trucks.
Me neither man. I had a 94 Dakota SLT Extended cab, and that thing was PERFECT size. Normally 1-2 people, works great. Need to haul 4 people, you can, it’s not comfortable, but it’ll do it. Plenty of room for a cooler and whatnot behind the seats. And a 6.5′ long bed, not these tiny 4′ beds on quad cabs. What is the point of a bed that small!?
Logged in to say the same thng about the bed.
In 10 years pick up truck beds may be 2-3ft long, probably.
I feel like there are a lot of missed opportunities here. The wheels are nice, but a new grill would have been better with the 3 dashes look. Also the interior could have gotten some unique things like a retro stitch pattern on the seats or a rubber accordion shift boot. This feels more like them trying to move units of the roll bars, and desperately trying to fine a reason to make those wheels.
They really needed to make the hood look like the old truck’s. The three vents in the hood made the Hardbody instantly recognizable.
I agree on the styling. There are many cues that totally betray the original hardbody asthetic. The head and tail lights, and the window sill line keep this from looking like a real homage to the original.
The wheels and the colour are sweet though.
Can we talk about the absolutely mint hardbody they have? I mean, I know it’s Nissan and they probably have a warehouse full of them. But damn, I think my next proj when I get back from the island of rusty Tacoma’s is going to be a hardbody.
I like this a LOT. I actually think the regular Frontier is the best looking new truck on the market right now. This package is the next level of that though. My only gripe is I wish they had gone farther with the graphics. They’re a touch on the tame side to my eyes.
“However, there’s sure to be contention over just how much coin Nissan is charging for the Frontier Hardbody. The automaker may have started with the relatively affordable SV trim, but this package adds $3,890 to a one-step-up-from-base 4×4 crew cab Frontier. Total price? $42,095 including a $1,335 freight charge. Yep, the Hardbody Edition is the second-most-expensive Frontier for the 2024 model year despite its utilitarian styling.”
It looks like Nissan may have found the back door to Porsche’s pricing methodology.
Damn…those wheels are amazing. If I needed a small truck (I don’t, full-size is a requirement on the farm), I’d have a hard time not shopping a new Frontier.
I’m a big fan of the hardbody as an uncle of mine had one back in the 90s that we absolutely beat the piss out of. After a number of years it was almost entirely made of bondo, but based on what it was used for, that was the goal. Clearly I’m part of the demographic that would be lured in by the nostalgic cues that they baked into this.
And you know, this is a pretty good job. It’s not just a trim level/badge, which seems to be the default for half of the crappy special editions out there. I wish a little more was done in the graphics and grille department, but yeah, the wheels fucking rock.
My wife saw a picture of it yesterday and the first thing she said was: “Wow, that’s ugly”.
I find it to be…fine…with a blatant ripoff of a Raptor’s tailgate.
I absolutely love the wheels, but the rest of it is merely OK. The sport bar doesn’t look right on today’s trucks, and the graphics are way too subdued. The OG hardbody pictured doesn’t have them, but IIRCS from being a kid in the 80s/90’s, Nissan DID have some pretty splashy graphics that competed with Toyota’s.
I loved these trucks as a kid, when my uncle bought a new 88 Toyota pickup (reg cab 5sp/3.0 V6) I was disappointed that it wasn’t the Nissan.
Damned if Thomas doesn’t once again just nail it, distilling an entire philosophical discussion (“what is the appropriate use of retro design?”) into a short focused article describing a truck.
I really like the phrase “tactical machismo” to describe our society’s almost mythological fetishization of activities/lifestyles we profess to love but not enough to actually do. We just want to own the accoutrements.
It’s more toxic than fetishizing manly outdoorsy activities, it fetishizes military infantry capability. Like every adult male needs to be prepared for a ground war in the Applebees parking lot.
Everyone knows never to fight a land war in an Asian restaurant, so the obvious remedy is to replace every Applebee’s with a PF Chang’s.
[Insert Vizzini gif or photo here]
Or a Sbarro’s, because everyone knows… Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
I’m fine with it. They’re some classy touches on a truck that’s meant to be clean, simple, and traditional…so harkening back to an older truck doesn’t seem like too much of a reach.
I don’t hate it, though I don’t love it. They got some things right, like the wheels, but then other elements feel like forced nostalgia and make it miss its mark. I think if they ditched the show bar and tailgate sticker it would better mimic the clean design the hard bodies had.
I don’t know why every pickup has to be a 4 door crew cab these days. I was briefly considering a new pickup purchase last year, but 90% of the available inventory was crew cabs. I don’t need room for passengers, I need a bed to haul shit.
I don’t get this argument, if you really needed a truck you can order exactly what you are talking about from Ford or GM, or go to a commercial-focused dealer today and get a base model white single cab longbed. There are plenty to be had outside of the suburban motor mile.
It’s getting tougher. I put an order in for my ’22 Colorado extended cab as soon as I heard GM was dropping the config for the 3rd gen.
The Ranger is only available in a crew cab. The new Tacoma is only available in the short cab with specific trims. Frontier offers it in all but the Pro trim levels which are crew cab only.
The higher profit margin models are the four doors, and basically sold as the “family sedan” in order to get buyers who are on the fence about buying one.
You can get a king cab Frontier but they’re inevitably going to be in lower quantities because they’re for truck people instead of people who are buying a truck. Yes, there’s a subtle but important difference there.
You can order a 2024 F150 in 2 door XL trim, including the 400hp Coyote V8 for just under $40K.
The three vents in the front of the hood on the original Hardbody are iconic and they needed to reference them.
Agreed. The black grille surround looks odd going into the hood line as it does. Given the expense of split painting this I understand why they went all black, but could’ve done 3-slots in place of the “Frontier” wording.
Yeah the nostrils should have been mandatory. Also the black plastic should not be high gloss.
The graphics are cool. I hope they offer them without the sport bar.
And the wheels. Mostly the wheels. I can get vinyl made for the graphics I want, but those wheels would be great.
Error 404, graphics not found. There’s a small decal on the door, but that doesn’t count.
and the hood. But still. Give me side stripes, hockey sticks, something exciting.
And the tailgate. It’d be great if the tailgate stripes stretched around the sides.
Yeah, if you want to pay tribute to the side graphics on 80’s trucks you gotta come waaaay harder than this. Those little trucks had multicolor stripes running down the length of the body. Start at the front fender and stop when you run out of truck. Nissan absolutely nailed those wheels though.
Someone photoshop it into an extended cab with the cool back windows.
and straighten the cutline between the cab and the bed.
Those wheels are worth the price of admission.
9 speed auto…
Honestly at this point a CVT would have been more interesting.
Unless it’s a BEV I’m not buying any car with an automatic, unless I’m swapping out the auto for a manual or a BEV drivetrain.
Why the fuck would you take a CVT over a planetary 9-speed auto?
A Nissan CVT at that
especially a Nissan CVT
It’s not fully planetary like an e-CVT, it has 4 planetary gearsets. I specifically said above:
So I’d take a manual, except Nissan got rid of their manual transmission when they moved to this new generation of Truck, the last gen Frontier was the last pickup being sold new in the US that could replace my 94 Toyota Pickup. I’d rather walk than drive a new Nissan pickup.
This 9-speed is extremely similar to the Mercedes 9GTronic that’s in everything from a C-Class to a SL, to a Vito, to the Titan. So again, why the fuck would you take a CVT over this?
“It’s not fully planetary” isn’t an answer.
What he’s saying is that it doesn’t have a manual so he doesn’t give a shit. Whether your car has a cvt or a 9 speed, it’s automatic.
Most of us enthusiasts prefer a manual.
We are the only reason there are still a few available out there.
But would a Nissan CVT be more interesting, as originally stated?
The comment was sarcastic son
In a vehicle with off-roading intentions no less
I would take a CVT over any of the modern automatics with more than 6 speeds. They are smoother and a lot more entertaining to drive as you can play with them with the throttle.
I’m a hard core manual guy, have never paid money to own an automatic car, however of all the vehicles I’ve driven with transmissions that shift them selves, my favorite was undoubtedly a CVT Nissan cube.
That cube you rode in is now mechanically totalled.
I thought the whole point of buying a Nissan was to get a CVT. /s
I really, really don’t want to buy a car in this market, but this is making it extremely difficult to stick to my guns.
Should have just done it with the king cab, the 4 door looks weird.
Whole heartedly agree. Proportions look out of whack.
I had an uncle who loved the cheap Nissan pickups. The two I remember were total base models, the first may not have even had a radio.
Needs a rubber accordion shifter boot.
^Nissan as a whole
The reason the Hardbody looked so good is clean lines and simple design. Following current design trends, the new Frontier is all techno squiggles, protrusions and angles. Still a handsome truck, though. Especially in red.
That said, if I was already in the market for one of these and it was on the lot, I’d probably buy it. Not sure I’d hunt one out and order one, though. You could probably DIY your own with a cheaper trim and some vinyl, minus the wheels.
As far as new trucks go, the Frontier is a pretty dang clean and simple design.
agreed, there’s one in my town in dark green and it looks tight and classy compared to the Tacos et al.