I live about ten minutes away from Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, so I’m always driving around or walking through to see what cars are out and about. There’s always rare, cool and weird stuff running around, and even on a slow day I’m likely to see at least a few new supercars and some nice classics. Over the weekend I spotted a car that really stood out, and it’s probably not what you’d expect: A two-door Nissan Patrol on Qatar license plates parked in front of the Beverly Wilshire hotel.
Any Nissan Patrol would catch my eye out here as the model was never sold in the U.S., though we got an Americanized version of the sixth-generation four-door Patrol as the Armada. I’ve seen some ‘80s Patrols that have been imported and put on U.S. plates, but this one is different story. It’s a fifth-generation Patrol, which was originally launched in 1997 and sold in some markets all the way up until 2023, and it seems like this particular Patrol is one of the last ones as it looks brand spankin’ new — it still has plastic covering the back seats!
I’m not usually one for two-door SUVs, but this Patrol is a cool looking thing. I love the classy multicolor pinstripe, the asymmetrical split side-hinged rear tailgate, the super fat tires and the big fender flares. I couldn’t get a good photo of the interior, but it was pretty bare-bones with cloth seats and no infotainment screen. This Patrol is a GL 4×4 trim (I’m not sure what the M badge means), with a 4.8-liter inline-6 gas engine and a manual transmission.
From the owner’s Instagram, it seems like the car was brought into port in the New York City area, and he road tripped it across the U.S. to California. That’s awesome. The Patrol isn’t the only car on Middle Eastern plates that’s been running around Beverly Hills this week, either. Parked up at the same hotel has been this Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ on Dubai plates, with windows tinted so dark they might as well be black. It gets hot in the Middle East, after all.
I was joking with my friends that despite its stock appearance there’s a non-zero chance the Patrol makes a lot more horsepower than the Chiron’s 1,600 horses, as the humble Nissan SUV is a popular vessel for mega tuning builds. Or, at least, if this Patrol hasn’t gotten boosted yet, it could be soon.
