A special note from Rich Miller, Director of Product Planning for all trucks and SUVs for Nissan North America

"Nissan Titan Truckumentary" tells story of next-generation pickup truck development

Hi folks,

Rich Miller here, Director of Product Planning for trucks and SUVs at Nissan North America. I've been involved with Nissan's truck program since 1995 when I was first hired by the company's Arizona Technical Center to handle durability testing and Vehicle Evaluation and Quality.

In addition to my job as a Director in Product Planning, I am also the Chief Product Specialist for Titan. In this role, it's ultimately my responsibility to stand for both the customer and the integrity of the product.

The debut of the next-generation Titan is right around the corner at the 2015 North American International Auto Show in Detroit this January. To celebrate this new truck, we want to take you behind the scenes to witness some of the milestones of Titan's development, meet the team that works on the vehicle and even get a glimpse of Nissan's larger truck heritage which goes back more than 55 years in the U.S.

Over the course of the next year, we'll be putting out a series of videos on www.nissannews.com/Titan, www.nissanusa.com and other places under the title of "Nissan Titan Truckumentary."

The "Truckumentary" is not meant to be the all-encompassing last word on Titan –rather it's the story of the vehicle's evolution and also of Nissan's evolution as a truck maker.

I think it's important to remember where we came from as a brand. With this in mind, we'll be showing you some things you maybe didn't know about Nissan. For instance, the first vehicle we sold in the U.S. under the "Datsun" nameplate was actually a pickup. The first vehicle of any type that we built in the U.S. more than 30 years ago was also a truck. (Read more about Datsun truck heritage.)

Taking us back to the present, a tight-knit group has been working on the next-generation Titan for several years now, and you'll get a close look at them through the "Truckumentary." The team is spread throughout the country, from our design studios near San Diego, to our proving grounds in the Arizona Desert, engineering operations in suburban Detroit, engine plant in Decherd, Tennessee, manufacturing plant in Canton, Mississippi, our North American headquarters outside of Nashville, and Cummins in Columbus, Indiana. The latter developed the new 5.0-liter Turbo Diesel V8 specifically for the Titan.

I've been on Nissan's truck program with many of the people that you'll meet in the coming weeks for nearly 20 years.  Some of us literally grew up together on Nissan's truck team. We even attended engineering school together, and we still hang out outside of work. As I write this, I'm currently chasing pheasants across the chilly plains of Kansas with some of the folks from our group.

The unifying link between us is that we pretty much all grew up as truck people. Many of us were raised in families where trucks were a given – we've never known life without a truck in the driveway.

The great thing about trucks is that they're multi-dimensional vehicles. They can get you to and from work, but they can also tow trailers, haul campers, sofas, furniture, etc. You can drive them down to the lake or off-road and generally take them places that cars would never go.

This is our guiding philosophy as we've developed and continue to develop the next-generation Titan, and I hope this comes through as you watch the "Nissan Titan Truckumentary." The first chapter debuts in mid-December, with more than a dozen additional chapters coming over the next year.

We hope you enjoy watching it as much as we've enjoyed bringing this new truck to life.

- Rich