Pandemic turns the Nissan Frontier into a utilitarian Tokyo beast - Speedhunters.

Pandem goes to utilitarian style: the extreme Nissan Frontier in Tokyo.

Deliver your dirt bikes, load up your camping gear, plan your move and book a trip to the dump - it's time to get physical with Pandem and their new pickup truck series. I love a good pickup truck, and who doesn't? But what's better than one pickup? Three pickups, of course. A while back, I covered the Datsun Sunny pickup truck from J.Beat Custom. But it's not the only utilitarian vehicle to get the Pandem treatment. Today we'll take a ride in an extreme Nissan Frontier from Hardcore Tokyo, and next time I'll show you a Hilux from TRA Kyoto. A remarkable trio of small trucks, if I may say so.

You may be wondering why I am so enthusiastic about the humble pickup truck, and a little history should explain it. When I was at university in Australia, my father gave me an old Nissan Pulsar when he returned to his homeland in the UK. Perhaps I realize now that it was a very sensible and entirely appropriate car for a poor student. But my neighbor owned a Holden Torana, and I dreamed of something just as cool. I sold the little white hatchback and bought a 1970s GM Holden HQ with a straight six-cylinder engine up front, three gears and plenty of room in the back for my dog Kazu. The HQ was a true classic Australian car and started my love of unusual cars.

But it's not just dogs that can be transported in a pickup truck. Refrigerators, camping gear and more are all easy jobs for such a light truck. The Australians have some great models, the king among them being the Holden Special Vehicles (HSV) Maloo. What my friends and I wouldn't do to ride one of these..... Need to move? Need to make a powerful "drag" at a motorcycle race? The Maloo can handle both tasks with no problem. The high performance-oriented mepee most often found on the construction site was the Nissan D22 Navara. In other markets it is known as the Nissan Frontier. This pickup was a hammerhead, not unlike the HSV laser level. Fast forward 20 years, and Jun Takahashi of Hardcore Tokyo decided to import this Frontier from Thailand and transform it. The challenge for the modeler

Toby Thayer, Instagram _tobinsta_tobythyer.co.uk. OFFICIAL SPEEDHUNTERS SUPPLIERS.