2024 Toyota Tacoma TRD Off-Road vs Nissan Frontier Pro-4X Review: Closer Than You Think

The 2024 Toyota Tacoma TRD Off-Road and 2024 Nissan Frontier Pro-4X couldn't be more different. One's based on a new platform that fits hybrid power, the other's a rehash of an old truck that's the only six-cylinder holdout in class. By all measures, the newer Toyota should trounce the older Nissan. But it doesn't, and in back-to-back off-road tests, the two performed more similarly than different. In the end, the choice between them comes down to a handful of areas that still aren't quite decisive.

I tested the two trucks together at a temporary off-road course at The Ridge Motorsports Park outside Seattle, Washington. The course was short in length but featured a fair range of obstacles to represent a variety of off-road driving scenarios. There were mudded ruts, long gravelly trails, a bumpy path you might follow while overlanding, and an obstacle course with a breakover ridge, a water pit, and some moguls. Mainly, I'll focus on how the trucks handled these, though I'll also touch on how they handle on-road as their handling characteristics there influence their behavior off it.

But first, a mechanical reintroduction of these trucks, starting with the Toyota.

The new 2024 Tacoma is based on the TNGA-F platform shared with the Tundra, Sequoia, Land Cruiser, and 4Runner, and it features an all-new 2.4-liter turbo four-cylinder engine. Both an eight-speed automatic and six-speed manual transmission are offered on the TRD Off-Road trim, which mates them to a two-speed transfer case. It's loaded with trail tech, from remote sway bar disconnects and an electronic locking rear differential to an array of camera angles and a new crawl control setting that works like off-road cruise control. There's an emphasis here on making things easier out on the trail—and it's close to the opposite of the Nissan's ethos.

By contrast, the Frontier is a far simpler truck; an old-school one as my colleague Andrew Collins put it. Its underpinnings are just a mild tweak from the previous model, which dated back to 2004. Its engine is a 3.8-liter naturally aspirated V6, which is fixed to a nine-speed automatic and its own two-speed transfer case. Its hand of off-road tricks is a small