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The Unsealed 4×4 crew have been busy bees lately, and have just landed back from the media drive event for three special four-wheel drives. These four-wheel drives are modified by the Premcar manufacturing facility in Melbourne Australia, before ever being registered, giving new life to some familiar Nissan off-roaders. With a unique Aussie engineering touch. And we all know how tough Australian conditions are.
What’s the story?
Naturally, I’m talking about the Warrior range of 4x4s, remanufactured in Australia by Premcar (a Second Stage Manufacturer). In the range, there are three four-wheel drives. The Patrol Warrior, the PRO-4X Warrior and the base model SL Warrior (my personal favourite).
All have larger tyres, lifted and enhanced suspension, bash plates, body flares and interior updates to make them special compared to the factory Nissan offerings. Better on-road, as well as being better off-road, is the design mantra employed here. You can check out the video at the end of this article to see if that brief has been met.
About Premcar
Premcar has been tasked, over a six-year contract, to create enhanced vehicles that punters can purchase directly from a Nissan showroom. Bernie Quinn, the bossman at Premcar made a great point when proudly showing us around their state-of-the-art facility.
“While Australia might not have much in the way of vehicle manufacturing anymore, we haven’t lost our appetite for modifying four-wheel drives with aftermarket accessories,” he said.
“So if we could build a factory-modified range of Nissan four-wheel drives, under strict manufacturing guidelines – wouldn’t that be a good thing?” I can’t help but agree…
Local testing
The testing of a Warrior is done entirely in Australia, considering the challenging terrain local to Premcar, this is a huge tick. We experienced some of the off-road terrain (Mt Dissapointment area) where some testing is undertaken, and the vehicles rode really well on the rough tracks. A credit to the suspension tuning featured in all Warriors.
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These vehicles, once testing has been successful, are homologated and approved through the Premcar secondary-stage manufacturing process. A key point here is this allows Premcar to match Nissan’s warranty. On all Warriors sold. The aim is to make them a better vehicle on and off-road, and we were told that warranty claims are next to none, showing the equipment used is fit for purpose.
About the Warrior Program
Way back in 2019, the very first vehicle produced by the (then much smaller) Premcar team, was the Nissan Navara N-TREK Warrior. This vehicle was replaced by the Navara PRO-4X Warrior in 2021 and is still on sale today, albeit updated. Not wanting to rest on their laurels, Premcar expanded again in 2022 with the launch of the base model Navara SL Warrior – making three distinct models in the Warrior line-up, including the Patrol.
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Premcar now employs nearly 200 employees in the engineering, design and manufacturing sectors. They have been involved remanufacturing of over 10,000 vehicles, as you can see from the massive banner hanging over their production line. Now that’s a win for Aussie manufacturing!
Numbers-wise, the Premcar team tells us they built and delivered 2,717 Patrol Warrior models to customers in 2023. This number is expected to nearly double in 2024, with sales projections indicating that 5,100 units will roll through their Melbourne-based facility in 2024.
Patrol Warrior key specs
- Warrior-branded front bumper assembly
- Red Warrior branded bash plate
- Black fender flares
- 18-inch alloy wheels
- Yokohama G015 295/70 All-Terrain tyres
- Bespoke towbar with two rear recovery points
- Bi-modal exhaust
- Rear bumper assembly with black valance panel
- Black mirror caps
- Black grille
- Warrior decals and badging
SL Warrior key specs
- 17-inch alloy wheels
- 8-inch touchscreen with AppleCarplay and Android Auto
- Cooper all-terrain tyres
- Hooped bull bar with 16-inch LED light bar
- 40mm suspension lift
- 30mm wide track
- Black fender flares
- Underbody protection
- Redesigned towbar
- 1026kg payload capacity (automatic transmission)
PRO-4X key specs
- LED headlights
- Loopless bull bar with LED light bar
- 17-inch wheels with Cooper all-terrain tyres
- 40mm suspension lift
- Leather heated seating with custom stitching
- 8-inch touchscreen with AppleCarplay and Android Auto
- Red bash plates
- Redesigned towbar
- 952kg payload capacity (automatic transmission)
2024 Warrior range pricing
Patrol Warrior by Premcar: $112,827 drive away
PRO-4X Warrior by Premcar: $74,656 drive away
SL Warrior by Premcar: $67,428 drive away
All pricing is accurate at the time of publishing, please check the Premcar Warrior website for up-to-date pricing.
Watch the video
For a full walkaround of each Warrior by Premcar, as well as some drive opinions from the launch, rather than reciting specs at you check out this in-depth video. We’d love to know what Warrior you’d like to see tested further, so please leave a comment on the video and we’ll be sure to respond. For me, the SL Warrior is a winner, as I like super simple and capable four-wheel drives. But that Patrol, wow it’s a bit of a beast.
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So. question – because Premcar are a second stage manufacturer does the vehicle only have to satisfy the original ADRs or is the car modplated, or has it a different tyre placard? I’m specifically looking at the Patrol and it’s 34″ tyres and it’s relevance to QLD NCOP rules meaning you can go +2″ on overall tyre diameter….36″ tyres would be pretty neat.