1990 Nissan Pathfinder SE Review - A Manual, V6, 2-Door SUV!

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:03]All right. What's up, guys? My name is Zach, and today I am driving a 1990 Nissan Pathfinder SE. Up front is a 3.0 L V6, and down below is a 5-speed manual transmission. Now, I am super excited to be driving this Nissan Pathfinder because this is the rare V6 manual twodoor, which is an awesome, awesome spec of the Pathfinder. But the second reason is the fact that I am filming Nissan's heritage collection here today at the Lane Motor Museum outside of Nashville, Tennessee to show you one of the original Pathfinders. And this car was actually pulled off the assembly line in 1990 and put directly into the collection. So this is a pretty prime example of a sweet, sweet car. But if you'd like to submit your own vehicle and have it reviewed here on the channel, you can head on over to my website, zackprale.com/submit.

[00:00:56]It's a quick and easy submission form.

[00:00:58]It takes under a minute to fill out and I come out to you. And if you'd like to see all my videos weeks or sometimes months in advance, you can head on over to my Patreon for only $5 a month. But let's get back to that 3 L V6 under the hood. Well, that was one of two engines available here in the Nissan Pathfinder for 1990. There was also a 2.4 4 L, better known as the KA engine that was found also in the Nissan hardbody, but the 240SX most famously, but this is the bigger engine which made 153 horsepower and 180 lb feet of torque. So, this was certainly the engine that you wanted. It is very, very smooth and it has that V6 confidence that I would want out of a motor like this. Now, like I said, paired to it is a five-speed manual transmission. It feels wonderful. It has a great clutch feeling, great throw into gear, super super smooth, and I love this spec. Again, V6, two-door, four-wheel drive manual. This is the absolute dream spec of the Pathfinder, and the manual is that cherry on top.

[00:02:02]Last but not least, as I hinted at earlier, this is the four-wheel drive model. How does it feel to drive the Nissan Pathfinder? Well, I've had very limited time driving this vehicle because it is a museum piece. Now, Nissan offered to put a plate on the back and let me roam around Nashville in it, but honestly, I didn't want to risk something happening to this spec of vehicle because it's one of very few left. What I can tell you is that all of the inputs are very, very smooth, and the V6 feels unrestricted. It moves this car so flawlessly and effortlessly that it is just such a treat. This is really truly what you want. Now, understandably, and we'll talk about later, the twodoor wasn't as popular.

[00:02:42]And for the 1990 model year, they did add a four-door, but driving it here, it is so, so good. It's so direct. It's so perfect, and I just adore it. With that stuff out of the way, let's talk about the interior. Well, in front of me, I have a whole array of gauges in a very techno late 80s, early9s fashion. Well, to the far left, we have the coolant temperature and tachometer. Then, we have the fuel in the center, which interestingly, we almost have two fuel gauges. At the bottom is the big, but then up top we have a zoomedin quarter and below. Very, very interesting that they actually added a more specific gauge there. Off to the right, we have our speedometer as well as battery voltage and oil pressure. But down below those gauges, we get cruise control and rear defrost timer. Very interesting.

[00:03:30]There we have our rear tailgate release and gauge dimmer switch. And off to the right under the gauge cluster, we have our hazard switch, some warning lights, as well as our rear intermittent wiper.

[00:03:39]and inner lock. On the steering wheel, we don't get anything. Off to the left, we do have a climate control vent. Down below that, we have our power mirror adjustments. And moving on to the door, we have this sticker for the sunroof installation precautions. Something you definitely don't see in most cars anymore. But then down below there, we have some really retro fabric. I absolutely adore that. And of course, our switches for the power windows.

[00:04:03]Moving into the center, we have two climate control vents and our climate controls. extremely basic here found in products like the Maxima of the era and vehicles like that. Straightforward, nothing to it. We do have our cigarette lighter and ashtray. And then, of course, we do have our cassette player down below because no 80s car would be finished without one. Then we do have our two shifters on the floor. So, off to left is our four-wheel drive shifter for two high, four high, neutral, and four low. And off to the right we have the transmission shifter, 5-speed manual. As I mentioned, it sounds and looks great and it works well enough.

[00:04:38]Moving into the center console, we have our handbrake. We do have our sport and touring suspension modes. A very, very 80s feature to have here. Does it really work?

[00:04:49]You know, not really. And then we do have a giant cubby in the center.

[00:04:52]Unfortunately, this is not a cup holder.

[00:04:55]There aren't any cup holders in the vehicle, so it fails the big frigin bottle test. But, you know, to be expected.

[00:05:03]The seats are very, very comfortable and they are red. I love this red interior.

[00:05:08]It's so 80s and 90s. It just looks so correct. I adore it. And up above my head, I do have that sunroof, which was an option here for the Pathfinder, and this one has it. However, speaking of seats, even though this is a twodoor, we do have back seats. So, let's go do a back seat review. So, one of the downsides of the twodoor is getting in the back. We can lower this and it does slide forward, but that is all the space you are given in order to get into the back seat. But once we've climbed in, it's not the worst in the world. Um, the seat obviously could come back a lot further. I I don't want to push my luck cuz I don't know if I can access the side button. Vehicles in the 80s and 90s didn't always have switches and stuff on the backs of the front seats to let the people out. You had to rely on whoever was in the front seat to let you out of the vehicle. And so I don't want to trap myself back here today. Once we are back here, as you can see, I love this top and these big windows. We get a light up here. We could enjoy the sunroof if we opened it. And we get some cubby space off to the left and right. But that's pretty much it. Again, this was a very, very basic back seat, which is crazy to now drive like modern Nissan Pathfinders, and they have USBC and heated seats in the back and four full doors. They don't offer the two-door anymore. It's cool to be back here. And this is such like, you know, this is the Genesis. This is the, you know, first take on the Pathfinder. And so this is kind of a crude back seat, but it made sense. This was really a Nissan hardbody pickup that they chucked back seats and a bed cap onto. I mean, there was more engineering that went into that for sure, but that was pretty much what they did. So, it's kind of cool to be back here. This is chapter 1, page, I guess, like three since it's like the third model year of it, but you know what I mean. like this is the early early beginnings. So that is really really special and this is what the back of a Nissan Pathfinder is like. So very cool.

[00:07:03]Let's hop into the very back. We'll take a quick look at the trunk and cargo space and then we'll talk about the looks. All right, so coming around the back, we do have this and we have to unhinge and move this and then now we can access the back. Now, we can unlock and open this if we wanted to, but let's open up the main back. And we do have a couple storage things. This is actually the sunroof shade. So, how you install the sun shade plate. Very, very cool to see that. But this is what you got in the back of the Pathfinder. Now, of course, this is pretty massively changed from the Nissan hardbody pickup because, well, it's not a pickup bed anymore. We can put those seats down. And as you can tell, there is carpet on the back for more storage, but we don't have any underfloor storage or anything like that because the spare tire actually fit on the back. So, very, very cool to see all of that extra space. And this is where a majority of the engineering happened for the Nissan Pathfinder to become the Pathfinder from its hard body roots.

[00:08:05]Now, we got to talk about the looks. And obviously, this is finished in red as well, just for that added bonus of the '90s car. I absolutely adore that. And this is the twodoor. That's the big talking point is that the Pathfinder was a twodoor from 1987 until 1990 where they continued the twodoor. However, they introduced a four-door variant for 1990 and that ended up being the runaway hit. Most people want SUVs like this.

[00:08:30]They want the practicality of four-doors. So, that just increases the rarity and awesomeness of this particular spec because it is the twodoor. With all of that being said, let's get on to my final thoughts. What do I think driving this museum, literal museum piece of a Nissan Pathfinder?

[00:08:49]Well, of course, it's incredibly cool.

[00:08:50]This is such a wonderful and unique example of the Pathfinder, but it goes beyond that. This is an important car, not only for Nissan, but for SUVs. In the late 80s, everyone started developing SUVs, and Nissan was no different in their strategy. They took the Nissan hardbody pickup and basically added a cap and back seats. That was really it. People were doing this aftermarket beforehand in the late '7s and early 80s with the hard body pickup.

[00:09:16]They were adding seats to the back. They called it the Bushmaster, which mostly took off outside of the US, but was still a pretty popular modification that people did. Well, Nissan said, "Let's get in on the party ourselves and actually develop something that is more comfortable and that people don't have to go to an aftermarket company with their hard body, chop it up to make something interesting." And so they came out with the Pathfinder right as the Explorer was coming out, the Cherokee was coming out. The 4Erunner had made its debut just two years earlier. So vehicles like that this started to compete with. And I have to say, this is an incredibly competent package. The V6 is wonderful. The manual is great. The interior and exterior options are wonderful. And this car just has so much personality. I absolutely adore it. And not to mention that this particular vehicle has been used in several of Nissan's ads. Not a vehicle like this.

[00:10:11]This exact car is owned by Nissan, so they can use it in commercials and ads and have it for prosperity's sake. And so to be able to drive that, to be able to command it, to be able to film that is such an incredible privilege. Huge, huge, huge thank you to Nissan for opening their heritage collection to me here in Tennessee. They've been absolutely wonderful and I was just so excited to share with you guys probably the best spec and best version of the Nissan Pathfinder of the first generation that I'll ever find. So, huge, huge, huge thank you to Nissan.

[00:10:44]But I hope you guys enjoyed the video.

[00:10:47]Don't forget to rate the video, comment on the video, and subscribe if you really liked it. Take care, guys.