by David Finlay (25 Oct 04)

Over the years I have been given various pieces of helpful advice before heading on to the roads in a test vehicle. "The tyres haven't been scrubbed in yet." "Remember to press the clutch pedal before you try to start the engine." "Bend it and you're dead." All quite straightforward. But until I encountered the Nissan Titan, nobody had ever said this to me: "Be careful that you don't decapitate somebody with the door mirrors. Seriously."

That warning should give you some idea of the Titan's scale. It is truly colossal. I have visited countries that were smaller. It looks like it wants to eat you.

Surely nobody in the UK could possibly find a use for such a thing? At most it could interest only a tiny minority over here - and yet the Titan is a big seller in the USA, where they love enormous pickups and have the space to use them.

Even there, though, these machines are very controversial. Some time ago, in a feature entitled SUV Armageddon Approaching?, we looked at the appalling consequences of an ideological battle which involved the Earth Liberation Front and the heavily religious What Would Jesus Drive? campaign on one side and the SUV Owners of America on the other. Each camp argued its case exceptionally strongly - in the ELF's case by setting fire to dealerships which sold vehicles of this type - but without much in the way of sturdy logic.

Nissan GB's decision to import a Titan and make it available to the press gave us the rare opportunity to find out what all the fuss is about. I must admit that my first glance at H13 UGE was rapidly followed by the decision to drive it on the widest and straightest roads I could find. If I tried to take it down B roads, or into a town, I had visions of being stuck and having to get someone to prise me out. My concern was backed up by the figures; the Titan is more than nineteen feet long, well over six feet tall, and has a kerb weight on the high side of two metric tonnes. Caution seemed advisable.

But within the first mile I realised I could be more adventurous. There is no way of forgetting just how wide the Titan is (the immense distance to the passenger door is a constant reminder), and you have to be very careful not to allow the right-hand side of this left-hand drive car to stray into the wrong lane, but in terms of driving difficulty the Titan is at about the same level as a Micra. Automatic transmission and very light - but not over-light - steering help this process, but so does the fact that the turn-in is much sharper than you might expect from such a monstrous device designed for the American market. Mid-corner behaviour is also impressive, with far less bouncing around than you find in many of the smaller pickups available in the UK.

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