When I wrote about the standard Nissan Pathfinder a while back and read the published result, I remember thinking how ordinary it seemed compared to a high-customised version of a competing brand on the next pages. It was very much a simple working vehicle, no frills. And given its raison-d’etre, well that was as it should be, a corker around a building site.

But there are an increasing number of people who want a pick-up for image reasons, or simply one that will both work and look good. And they don’t need to go further than the Pathfinder again for this, but with the ‘Navarra’ tag that denotes a significantly more interesting look.

It’s a double cab again, and a 5-seater, so there’s less loadbed area, but if there’s a crew to be toured, they’ll fit, albeit a little knees-up in the back seats, which really aren’t for the long non-stop haul.

It is again powered by the familiar 2.5-litre turbodiesel four, outputting 133PS and with a fairly respectable 304 Nm of torque maxing out at 2000rpm. It is a sturdy puller with full crew and their tools and supplies out back.

(Or the lawnmower AND strimmer AND green wheelbarrow and spades along with some stuff from the garden centre if the vehicle is being used for suburban home landscape service by a business that believes in also having enough operatives on the job to get as many gardens done in a day as possible.)

The Navarra version upgrades the image of such a business. The classic pickup, already handsome in a square-jawed kind of way, gets electronic 3-channel, 4-sensor ABS added to its disc/drum brakes setup, and bigger 17” wheels with heftier tyres, along with some extra chrome and side steps. Available options to complete the picture are a full electric pack, a sunroof, a roll bar and climate control.

Which all in all will add another 2,181 euros to the 2,828 euros extra you’re paying for the Navarra version over the standard double-cab Pathfinder. But if you’re going that far, you might as well go the whole hog, so to speak. Certainly, you’ll not be interested in hauling hogs in it if you’ve taken the Navarra road.

The essential loads and capacities info: the GVW is 2,860kgs, and maximum payload is 1,065kgs. It can haul a braked trailer weight of 3,000kgs.

The loadbed length is 1,395mm (against 2,235mm for the standard pickup and 1,865mm for the intermediate King Cab) and it’s 1,390mm wide. There’s 84 litres of luggage capacity behind the back seats, fairly well down on both other versions but you have to balance that against the people-carrying space. And the Double Cab configuration gives an extra 15mm of headroom over the Single Cab.

The Navarra can hit 99mph in the right conditions, though I wouldn’t recommend it because the low overall gearing will have the engine noise at a pretty awful howl, and anyway with the (necessarily) firm suspension, it wouldn’t be comfortable on the rear end (of the occupant, not the vehicle!). Acceleration from the turbodiesel is respectable for such a vehicle, at 13.3sec for the 0-100kph (again, it’s not going to be a significant factor in everyday use).

The Navarra has, of course, all the 4WD options that are likely to be needed in most rough working situations, in low and high ratios, and with normal operation being in fuel-and-tyre-saving 2WD.

I had other driving options during my review time with the Navarra. But, you know, I got fairly fond of it, so much so that I tended to use it as my main personal transport for the period.

It attracted attention, which was not what I was after, but the Navarra trimmings do make it a head-turner that the standard Pathfinder isn’t, and doesn’t need or want to be as far as most owners are concerned.

And so I wonder where’s the real position of this genre of machine in today’s Ireland? We’re never going to ride the range of the US, where the biggest selling vehicle of all has for so many years been a Ford pickup. And I don’t see it taking on the mostly lifestyle SUVs and MPVs which abound amongst the art gallery classes. Nor is it an easy drive.

No, Pathfinder and their Navarra upgrades and similar are for real working people still, with the enhanced versions for those who want some style to their real workhorses, and for whom that style might well bring them extra business.

And for the 5,000-odd euros extra with the full-whack Navarra, it might only take one prestige suburban landscaping job, where what you see is how you’re perceived, to bring in the difference.

It’s worth thinking about.