Sometimes a path splits in two, and so does a Nissan Pathfinder.
Automotive News reports the name will be used on two different vehicles, with Nissan set to continue to offer a Pathfinder based on a car-like unibody platform alongside a recently reported body-on-frame large SUV also bearing the name.
The existing fifth-generation Pathfinder will reportedly receive updates in 2028 or 2029 aimed at improving ride and handling, though cosmetic updates are also expected.
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It will also reportedly continue to exclusively offer combustion power. There’s no word of a hybrid powertrain like the one available in the previous-generation Pathfinder.
To reduce confusion, the born-again body-on-frame Pathfinder – reportedly due as soon as mid-2029 – could wear the Pathfinder Pro-4X nameplate.
The Pathfinder Pro-4X will reportedly be one of a range of new Nissan and Infiniti models underpinned by a new ladder-frame platform.
One of the vehicles on this platform will be a reborn Xterra, which previously existed as a smaller, more off-road-focused version of the last body-on-frame Pathfinder. Others will include a new Frontier ute and a new Infiniti QX60, with Nissan reportedly targeting 70 per cent parts commonality across the quintet.
This more rugged Pathfinder Pro-4X will reportedly be positioned above the updated unibody Pathfinder in price, and will be launched with petrol power before a hybrid powertrain becomes available later in its life cycle.
It’s expected to have a boxier design to match its superior off-road credentials, and it’s also likely to offer greater towing capacity. As a platform-mate to a Nissan ute, the new Pathfinder Pro-4X will be conceptually similar to the first and third generations of the nameplate.
Nissan wouldn’t be the first auto brand to offer similarly sized unibody and body-on-frame SUVs simultaneously. Toyota in Australia offers the unibody Kluger and body-on-frame Prado, while in the US it has the unibody Highlander and Grand Highlander and the ladder-frame 4Runner and LandCruiser.
A source told Automotive News that more than half of buyers may cross-shop the two Nissan Pathfinders against each other.
Nissan is reportedly flexible on how long it’ll offer the unibody Pathfinder.
Automotive News reports US Pathfinder sales reached a high watermark in 2025, exceeding 100,000 annual units for the first time on the back of a 26 per cent year-on-year rise.
The best the last body-on-frame Pathfinder generation managed was 76,156 units in 2005.
The Pathfinder’s 2025 sales performance saw it outsell the Toyota Highlander, as the Kluger is known in the US, which notched up 56,208 sales.
It was an entirely different story in Australia, where the Pathfinder languishes on the sales charts. Nissan delivered just 732 examples here last year, against 8098 Toyota Klugers and 2364 Hyundai Palisades.
The current Pathfinder was revealed in February 2021, though it didn’t reach local showrooms until late 2022.
It features what Nissan has called a “significant evolution” of the platform under the previous-generation model, which entered production in 2012. The basic D platform is older still, first entering production in 2000.
A facelifted model was revealed in the US late in 2025, but has yet to be confirmed for Australia, where Nissan has previously confirmed the Pathfinder faces an uncertain future due to unfavourable exchange rates.
Earlier, in 2023, Nissan revealed an even more substantially updated Pathfinder for China with dramatically different exterior styling and a turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine.
The Pathfinder is among several Nissans that use an updated version of an old platform, with the Z sports car’s FM underpinnings, for example, dating back to 2001.