Nissan has filed to trademark “Nissan Xterra” with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Ford Authority has learned.
Filed on December 23rd, 2024, under serial number 98918319, this application contains the goods and services description of “Motor vehicles, namely, automobiles, sport utility vehicles and structural parts therefor.”
The Ford Authority Take
In recent years, boxy, off-road focused SUVs and crossovers have become incredibly popular yet again as consumers shy away from round, egg-like models and toward more rugged-looking machines. Some of these vehicles – such as the Ford Bronco – actually offer off-road capability to match their rugged looks, while others are more about appearances, strictly speaking. Now, it seems as if one off-road-focused SUV from the past may make a comeback, years after it was discontinued – the Nissan Xterra.
This new trademark filing certainly seems to suggest that we’re on the cusp of a Nissan Xterra revival, which is something that dealers have been asking for since the Bronco returned for a sixth-generation in the 2021 model year. The Xterra never overlapped with the Bronco in terms of production, as it debuted in 1999 for the 2000 model year, but it was a bit ahead of its time – bringing customers in that may not have otherwise considered a Nissan vehicle, as well as folks looking for a capable, body-on-frame utility vehicle.
The Xterra was discontinued after the 2015 model year, largely due to rising gas prices and the Great Recession of the 2000s, not to mention the fact that Nissan didn’t really update it too much over the course of those years. Regardless, much like how the Bronco and Ranger share a platform, the original Xterra utilized Frontier pickup underpinnings – meaning that it could potentially do precisely the same thing yet again, given the fact that the Frontier got its own redesign for the 2022 model year. Whether or not the Nissan Xterra returns as a proper Bronco rival remains to be seen, however, though we do know that GM isn’t planning on throwing its hat in that proverbial ring.
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