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Nissan Patrol Y61 Marks Demise With Legend Edition

Serious off-road vehicles are a dying breed. Even the current-gen Nissan Patrol, codenamed Y62, is more of a luxobarge rather than a full-on rock crawler like its predecessor. Be that as it may, the Japanese manufacturer found it necessary to pull the plug on the Y61-gen Patrol, which has been around since December 1997.
Nissan Patrol Y61 Legend Edition 11 photos
Photo: Nissan Australia
Nissan Patrol Y61 Legend EditionNissan Patrol Y61 Legend EditionNissan Patrol Y61 Legend EditionNissan Patrol Y61 Legend EditionNissan Patrol Y61 Legend EditionNissan Patrol Y61 Legend EditionNissan Patrol Y61 Legend EditionNissan Patrol Y61 Legend EditionNissan Patrol Y61 Legend EditionNissan Patrol Y61 Legend Edition
But before production comes to a halt, Nissan decided to let the former-gen Patrol go out with a bang. Hence, the manufacturer prepared a special edition model, which is called Legend Edition and it’s limited to just 300 examples.

Packing more than AUD 10,000 of goodies from the Nissan genuine accessories catalog, the retail price for the Patrol Y61 Legend Edition is AUD 57,390 before on-road charges. That’s nearly $43,000 at current exchange rates, an appropriate sum for the so-called "ultimate recreational vehicle.”

That’s no joke, if I may add, chiefly because the Patrol Y61 is an extremely capable machine. If it were not, Australian customers wouldn’t have bought more than 104,000 units to date. “The Nissan Patrol Y61 Legend Edition is a fitting representation of what this model has delivered for the last 20 years,” explained Richard Emery, the managing director of Nissan's Australian arm.

Available with either a 5-speed manual or a 4-speed automatic, the Legend Edition is equipped with a low ratio transfer case (2.02:1), automatic locking free-wheeling hubs, and coil-sprung suspension on all four corners. The business end of the old dinosaur is a 3.0-liter diesel packing four cylinders.

118 kW (160 PS / 158 hp) and 380 Nm (280 lb-ft) of torque will have to make do in manual configuration. The auto, however, is not as torquey due to the transmission’s limitations. It develops 354 Nm (261 lb-ft) of oomph.

So there you have it. It’s the end of an era this, but the Patrol Y61 won’t be forgotten too soon. If you want one, you’d better act quick because those 300 examples are sure to sell out faster than an AC/DC concert.
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About the author: Mircea Panait
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After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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