With the news of Nissan Design America’s closing, we wanted to consider the earliest and arguably the most iconic vehicle to emerge from the studio: the WD21 Nissan Pathfinder. As it happens, we once stumbled upon this exact car at the parking lot of Nissan Design America. We were there to review the new Nissan Z, but learned that the Pathy belonged to Hiren Patel, a Senior Design Manager at NDA who was responsible for the new Frontier pickup, among many other projects at Nissan.
We asked Patel how he came to work at Nissan, and it turns out it was a childhood dream. “I grew up drawing cars all the time,” he told us. His high school in Louisiana had a class that asked students to make a life plan in which they’d choose a career, pick a college, figure out a salary and where to live, and so on. “I wanted to be a car designer, but the only one I knew was Jerry Hirshberg, who I saw on TV.”
At the time, Nissan’s Chief Designer appeared in Nissan ads, including one featuring the second-generation R50 Pathfinder. “I called the 1-800 number on the Nissan brochure asking how to be a car designer, and they told me about a studio in California,” Patel recalled, “So I wrote him a letter.”
Patel doesn’t remember who wrote back, just that someone did, by hand in cursive. The letter counseled young Hiren to focus on art, how to build a portfolio, and listed some colleges to consider. He followed the advice and ended up at the very studio he learned about as a teen. “It didn’t hit me that all this happened until I graduated and was sitting in interview room at NDA,” said.
Fast forward two and half decades and Patel has now worked on Nissan design in Japan, Brazil, and the US. Sadly, two of those studios will be closing soon in an effort to cut costs.
Patel’s first project was working under Diane Allen during the development of the Infiniti M30. In terms of concept cars, he’s worked on the wild 2010 Ellure that set the stage for the Altima, the Extrem SUV coupe, and the Resonance concept that foretold the Murano. Patel’s production car résumé also includes the first-gen Rogue, Kicks, Navara, Y62 Patrol, the 2020 facelift for the Titan, and the current-generation Frontier.
“As I was working on Frontier, I was well aware that we weren’t making a retro truck,” Patel told us. “But there’s a different reverence for design in different vehicles. People think more about the lineage of certain cars, like the Z, and there’s a lot of baggage there for better or worse.”
I was always looking at D21 Hardbodys for inspiration,” Patel told us. “The Frontier has a lot of the DNA from that time period, when Japanese cars first started coming into their own, when they became their own world-class object. The D21 was the most modern pickup out there.”
As his research progressed, Patel became increasingly drawn to the idea of owning a D21 himself. That led to his hunt for a WD21 Pathfinder, the enclosed SUV version of the D21 Hardbody. The search for the right one took three to four years, but Patel eventually found, on the Inland Empire’s Craigslist, a 1988 4×4 SE in Crystal Blue.
It was in nice shape but had lived a full life. Patel went to work replacing basic mechanical items like water pumps, pulleys, and spark plugs. He hired a paintless dent repair specialist to remove all the dings, which had blighted every panel. “It’s one of those cars that just people used up and threw away,” he lamented.
As Patel’s love the Pathfinder grew, so did his desire for the best parts. Soon he found himself ordering parts from Japan. “The armrest showed up in a NOS box with thin wrapping plastic and old Nissan logos all over it. It felt more special than opening my first iPhone,” he joked.
Patel walked us around his favorite features of the Pathfinder: the triangular side glass unique to the 3-door body style that pops open for airflow; the twist knob to select the speed of the intermittent wipers; the driver’s side window switch that utilizes different shapes for the left and right windows, so you can operate them solely by touch.
The latest Pathfinder, the R53, Exhibit some of the design cues that are so beloved on the original. There are three slots above the grille, though much subtler in the new one. There is an angled sea pillar, reminiscent of the unique window divider of the 3-door WD21. The wheels live under box flares.
“When I first drove it, it was my first time driving a Pathfinder. I was surprised at how solid it still felt. I thought it would feel tinny and minimalist,” Patel explained. “The panels aren’t thick, and I figured it would be squeaky and rattly but the steering was tight, the gear changes were very direct, not slushy.”
The best thing about the Pathfinder, Patel reckons, is that he encounters other owners and former owners, and gets to hear them relive their own Pathfinder stories. “I can’t go anywhere without a thumbs up,” he says. If those thumb throwers only knew that the Pathfinder’s driver works at the place where it was born… for the next few months, at least. Patel’s Pathfinder will be at the 2025 Japanese Classic Car Show at the Nissan booth.
Love it, great story. I was surprised to hear he expected the old Pathfinder to be “tinny and rsttly.” Sounds like he’s not familiar with Japanese cars (mu 1998 Toyota Tacoma is coming up on 600,000 miles and still has no squeaks or rattles.)
Great story on such a classic vehicle. IMO one of, if not the best looking pick/SUV’s. That “C pillar” was also seen on the early Pulsars.
Besides the obvious Datsun classics, these are my favorite Nissan designs.
“The EXA / Pulsar NX could also be driven without either rear hatch. The design was conceived largely at the Nissan Design International (now Nissan Design America) studios in San Diego, CA and shared styling cues (prominently, the rear side window angle) with the contemporary two-door Nissan Pathfinder/Terrano (WD21) SUV. The design was done under the direction of NDI President Jerry Hirshberg,”