Interview: The Dumbest Thing I Ever Did in a Truck

Again I prodded: why not just offer a refreshed version of Nissan’s own gasoline-powered V8?

“We can build a chassis,” Miller explained, “but we asked, ‘what kind of engine do you have that can give us that acceleration and towing power and give us great fuel economy?’

“And that’s when we got the 5.0L. I always joke about it, but when we started it had a little less torque than it does now and every time we talked I went up by five. He’d say 540 and I’d say, ‘What about 545?’”

Caldwell chuckled at that one. “He [Miller] talks about the torque wars, and now my arm’s about 180 degrees to where it used to be because he’s been twisting me saying, ‘I need a little bit more, just a little more!’”

“I like the triple-nickel, I like the 555,” Miller says, referencing the final torque output of the Titan’s diesel engine. “But in all seriousness it was about trying to get the truck into that backspace that has been vacated by our competitors moving off.”

Unsurprisingly, both men say the diesel engine is their favourite part of the new Titan.

“I like that when you’re towing, if the truck’s idling, you take your foot off the brake and it just walks away with the load. You don’t even have to push the accelerator down,” Caldwell says. “Low-end torque. That’s diesels and that’s what you’ve got to love about them.”

Miller agrees.

“I call it tenacity. That’s what I really like, the in-gear acceleration. A gas engine makes a lot of horsepower, they get those rpms up. And our gas engine is strong, but that comfort you get from a diesel engine when you don’t need to drop a gear to accelerate – that sense of acceleration you feel in your face and your body. When I want to pass somebody, I can lean on the gas. I don’t have to go deep into the gas to make that pass.”

“I’m training him to say ‘deep in the diesel’ – this isn’t gas!” Caldwell jokes.

Just when I’m thinking things are lighthearted, I start asking about the differences between Titan and Titan XD. Miller’s voice changes slightly, his face firming.

“In the XD, it’s not a game we’re playing here,” he says.

“Our Titan can tow 9,000 lb all day long, but if you want to go to 12,000 it’s not a final drive change. It’s a chassis change. It’s a frame change. It’s an engine change. It’s a total configuration change. It’s a big difference.

“Anybody who tows, they want to tow with something more substantial underneath them when they’re hauling something big behind them.”

For a brief moment I’m reminded of a wife calming her long-term husband when Jeff interjects.

“All of Nissan has talked of this as a ‘white space.’ Last night, I heard Rich use a term I liked even more.

“As he said, the other players in the Heavy Duty market have escalated, escalated, but this now is a backspace. It is really back where those trucks were from a torque capability 10 years ago. To his point, and you talk about kismet, but in 2004 we had a marketing group do a survey and they told us, 84 percent of the people that tow never tow more than 10,000 lb. So that’s the space where people are buying more truck than they ever need. And Rich is putting a Nissan Titan in that space that’s targeted exactly at that 10-12,000 lb, right where people need it.”