Nissan’s 440-Horsepower Supercharged Frontier Street Truck Concept Whips An Insane Amount Of Ass

They say nostalgia works in 20-year cycles. Indeed, just as the ’90s were a pervasive element of the 2010s, elements of the 2000s are starting to bubble up through the cultural ooze of the 2020s. The kids are listening to Creed, you’re just as likely to see a full Juicy Couture sweatsuit in the club as Rick Owens, and even some automotive trends of the early 2000s are making a comeback. For instance, this custom Nissan Frontier offers solid evidence that street trucks are cool again.

Cast your mind back nearly a quarter of a century, and the big craze in factory-tricked pickup trucks wasn’t hydraulic bump stops or 35-inch tires, it was dumping it low, chucking on a body kit, going monochrome, and potentially adding some serious horsepower. The street truck was borne from the aftermarket, but it became the ride of choice for suburban warriors looking to stay fly on their way to Home Depot.

This particular street truck came from the mind of three-time Formula Drift champion Chris Forsberg, and his rationale was simple: “I haven’t built a lowered truck since 2003. It just seemed fun – it was different.” Indeed, the Nissan Frontier Tarmac Concept is different in all the right ways, and completely unashamed of its on-pavement mission.

It all starts with a Roots-style supercharger blowing through a water-to-air intercooler. Nissan claims this unit’s enough to pump the output of the 3.8-liter VQ38DD V6 up to 440 horsepower and 400 lb.-ft. of torque. That’s plenty of go-power to have fun, even with the standard nine-speed automatic transmission.

Since you can’t clutch-kick an automatic, the Frontier Tarmac concept rocks a hydraulic handbrake with a proper dual-caliper setup so you can rip the handbrake while left-foot braking and not have everything go all weird. Speaking of brakes, this Frontier rocks calipers from a Z Nismo, which seems like an appropriate parts bin choice for something of this size and nature.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a street truck without a serious drop, so this Frontier gets lowered four inches in the front and six inches in the back with adjustable coilovers to dial in ride height and damping. With remote reservoirs, these Nismo prototype dampers are a little bit fancier than throwing drop shackles and lowering springs on a truck, and they show how beautiful progress can be.

Speaking of fitment, this thing’s rocking 10-inch-wide wheels up front and 12-inch-wide wheels out back with carbon fiber barrels to reduce unsprung weight. Of course, crazy fitment like that requires a little extra bodywork, so custom fenders add four inches of width to this Frontier while giving it a ridiculously mean stance. A hood with a scoop, a splitter, a hard tonneau cover, and some smaller lips complete the bolt-on visual treatment before a proper livery sends things over the top.

Inside the Frontier Tarmac Concept, you’ll find Recaro Sportster CS seats with classic gradient inserts to gel with the orange stitching found throughout the factory interior. A carbon fiber steering wheel, carbon fiber trim, and orange seat belts complete the package, but frankly, I want those seats the most. They’re just so damn cool, and it’s sweet to see some color in an otherwise dark interior.

While the Frontier Tarmac Concept is a one-off build for SEMA, it does provide two handfuls of inspiration for the aftermarket. Long live the street truck, darling of the attitude era, purveyor of suburban mayhem in spiked tips and No Fear merch.

(Photo credits: Nissan)

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