Another badass Nissan Patrol for the collection. I saw this one in 2016 in Beijing, it was a bit dusty but a clean Patrol is not really a good Patrol. These cars need to be dirty and full with mud! The beige color scheme works very well on the big Patrol, almost as if it just came back out from the desert.
Today’s Patrol is a fifth generation ‘Y61’ example. Production in Japan started in 1997 and continued until 2016, with various updates in between. The Y61 is still in production in Morocco, Pakistan, and South Africa.
The ‘modern day’ Y61 is mainly sold in Africa and the Middle East, and in most market they call it the Patrol Safari. Nissan does not sell it officially in China but there is a lot of gray import from Dubai (Nissan does sell the current Y62). I have seen a lot them, more on those cars in later posts.
The car that I saw is of the post-2002 upgrade, which included a new front design. Nissan started officially selling the Y61 Patrol in China in 2004, and sales continued until 2014. There was just one variant available; the 4800 GRX 4×4 and it was priced at a very steep 655.000 yuan.
The interior is very much original! Pretty leather seats and nice detailing on the doors and dashboard, with wood panels and some leather. The radio-cassette player seems period too, and the owner added a cool CB radio system.
There are quite a few of these giant Patrol SUVs in Beijing. Many owners take them over the Great Wall to the steppes of Inner Mongolia in the weekends, for off-road racing and wading through rivers. Still a lot of wild lands there, even today.
The Nissan Patrol 4800 GRX 4×4 is powered by a 4.8 liter six-in-line petrol engine, rated at 252 hp and 420 Nm. The engine was mated to a 5-speed automatic gearbox. Top speed was 180 km/h and 0-100 was gone in a relaxed 15 seconds. Not a fast car on the road, but it’ll go over the steppes with more speed than almost anything else.
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