William Maley

Editor/Reporter - CheersandGears.com

January 5, 2012

If there was one automaker who is happy to see Ford leaving the compact truck market, it would be Nissan.

"We're really the beneficiary of Ford pulling out of the segment. We felt it was an opportunity to capture market share and we went after it last year, and we went after it without increasing incentives," said Nissan U.S.' sales boss Al Castignetti.

Last summer, Nissan pushed sales of the Frontier compact truck. The move helped the company record their biggest sales in the U.S.. Nissan sold 51,700 Frontiers last year, an increase of 28% from 2010. But the number pales when compared to the 70,832 Rangers sold last year.

To help boost 2012 sales of the Frontier, Nissan has created a new ad-campaign promoting it as a alternative to full-size trucks.

"We got our dealers reinvigorated on the truck and got our marketing out there. We're having great success with it," said Castignetti.

Source: Autoweek

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In my opinion, Datsun is a company that can bring out a pickup smaller than Frontier and, with proper marketing, sell the heck out of them. They were the Japanese company that really broke through in the 70's with their pickups.

Frontier is certainly a nice truck, but it's a gas hog for the size. Without sacrificing midsize capability, a diesel is needed to lighten the drain on wallets.

The Frontier is the only Japanese pickup truck I like (well that and it's Suzuki counterpart).

It's a nice truck....needs a new dash, been tryin to get my dad to take an equator from me....

Ford was dumb to leave this market. the Ranger was still selling well.

(sure, with 6-7000 on the hood).

Bring back the Dogs Love Trucks ad campaign

Yea use some of the smaller breads