BATTLE WAGON.

Byline: TOBY HAGON

Nissan sends the Navara into the tough truck fray Utes were once made to carry heavy things and cop scrapes and scratches while getting on with the job.

These days people want so much more: space, safety, seats, functionality, comfort and the ability to drive almost anywhere.

Over the past two decades, sales of utes have doubled in Australia, to the point where last month they accounted for one in five new vehicle sales.

And it's the top end of the market that's on fire. "Buyers are migrating towards the dual-cab pick-up segment, particularly 4x4," says Nissan Australia product marketing manager Callum Mayne.

"But not just any 4x4; they're really looking at that high-end grade. And that's being defined by new product entrants ... (Toyota HiLux) Rugged X and (Ford) Ranger Raptor have contributed to that growth." As we surge towards 2020 the average ute buyer could be anyone from an office manager in the CBD to a fitness trainer in the suburbs to a farmer or tradie. It's a thought not lost on me as I bound over a sizeable bump in Nissan's new top-end entrant, the Navara N-Trek Warrior - a tough name and, if Nissan has done its homework, an even tougher truck.

The Warrior is a Navara re-engineered from the wheels up.

Mayne says it's a car that carves a niche within a niche. "There's certainly opportunity there with this vehicle," he says, referring to the Warrior as a "halo vehicle".

That underscores how dramatically the car market has changed. Once we aspired to V8 Commodores or luxury BMWs - now the humble ute...