As early as January, Brian Murphy drove his daily mode of transport across the magical million-mile mark. In itself was special, but he also did it with the Nissan Frontier that he bought new in 2007. Nissan thinks it is reason enough to spoil Brian with a new Frontier, which bears a striking resemblance to the previous one.
Murphy is an independent courier in daily life and has no shortage of work mileage based on his annual mileage. In his own words, the 62-year-old American from the Chicago area regularly spends 13 hours a day behind the wheel. The million miles were tapped as early as January 2020, 12 years and 7 months after purchasing the dark red pickup. That means that Murphy drove an average of about 80,000 miles, or nearly 130,000 km, per year. Every year, for more than 12 years. We take our hats off.
If all those miles slip under the wheels of a newly purchased and highly reliable Nissan Frontier, that car is of course a driving billboard for its maker. Nissan will not miss that opportunity, so Murphy was put in the spotlight on the press site earlier this year and his special red Frontier played a leading role in the presentation of the model year 2020 Frontier.
Now Murphy’s dealer M’Lady (yes) from Crystal Lake is taking the next and biggest step, by hoisting the loyal customer into an entirely new Frontier. The attached photos show that the brand new blue car looks like two drops of water on the old one. The Nissan Frontier has been around for a while. In Europe we have known this model from 2005 as the second generation of the Navara, which was already replaced by generation three in 2014. However, that new Navara never appeared on the market in North America.
Next year, a completely new Frontier is to be released especially for that region, but for model year 2020, Nissan provided the old model with a new powertrain. Murphy is improving, because instead of a 2.5-liter four-cylinder with manual gearbox (!), He now gets a 3.8 V6 with a 9-speed automatic transmission from Nissan. That will take some getting used to, after so many kilometers of shifting… Incidentally, the new Frontier also has to work hard in the coming years, although Murphy considers the chance that this car will also reach the million is small. That Murphy makes all his miles in a Frontier is special in itself, because for American standards this Japanese pick-up is very small. There are more extreme road warriors in the country, but they usually drive larger ‘trucks’.
1.3 million km with 1 clutch
The old Frontier of this dream Clock Around candidate still has his first engine and gearbox. At 801,000 miles (nearly 1.3 million km), the clutch was first replaced. A little earlier, at 7 tons in miles, the distribution chain was renewed preventively. Radiator and alternator lasted about 450,000 miles, or more than seven tons in kilometers. The old manual transmission Frontier will be given a permanent and prominent place by Nissan in the Frontier factory in Tennessee where the car was once built.