Living the thrill

Jason Spek x Nissan Frontier

Jason Spek is a man who knows extreme machines. As an Aviation Systems Technician based at Four Wing, Cold Lake in Alberta, he works to keep the country’s advanced F-18 fighter planes in the air. With a top speed close to twice that of sound, these aircraft are the pinnacle of Canada’s airborne fleet.

But Jason doesn’t leave his love of extreme machines on the base when work is done. As an avid outdoorsman and camper, he needed a rugged vehicle to get him off the road and into the vast wilderness and mountain terrain of Alberta – and capable of getting him home again. The Nissan Frontier was top of his list.

“A buddy of mine has an XTerra that's all built up,” says Jason. “It's sweet, but I needed a pickup truck. And he told me the Frontier is literally an XTerra with a box, and I was sold. I went with the 2018, and it's been fun ever since.”

But as a mechanic, hobbyist and off-roader, Jason just couldn’t leave his Frontier alone. The list of modifications he and his friends have done to the pickup is, to say the least, comprehensive, highlighted by an aluminum ‘flat tray’ bed with compartments for all his gear. He’s added off-road lights, high-clearance bumpers, larger off-road wheels and tires, a cat-back exhaust, a larger gas tank, wide fenders, intake snorkel … you get the idea. He also loaned his pickup to a company that used it to custom design roof racks and skid plates, which they now sell for the Frontier.

An interesting part of the build was the front suspension; as the Frontier shares a frame with the Titan, Jason swapped the larger truck’s parts onto the Frontier for more suspension travel. With all of these changes, Jason has made a pickup that he can rely on to get him in and out of some of the most rugged terrain Alberta has to offer.

“I beat the crap out of it!” he says. “I take it down to Jasper, the foothills of Hinton, I've gone through a lot of little trails here in Cold Lake. And I just, yeah, just off road with it. Go adventuring. Go exploring.

“There's been some pretty dicey times we've gone so far into the woods on the trails, but I could not turn around and I had to back out of the whole trail, a kilometer down the road or something, just slowly maneuvering. All my friends own smaller off-roaders, so it's very easy for them to turn around.

“But I’d rather have the Frontier! Because they have so much junk packed in the back of their cab, just stacks of stuff, and then there's me with a toolbox in the truck and then I've got all the floors in my flat tray packed, I've got jerry cans back there, they're not in my cab. Yeah, so much happier with a pickup truck.”

Jason has been turning wrenches even before he took his first shop classes in high school. He would have liked to have made automotive mechanics a full-time job but, as he puts it, there was a compelling reason to take the career path he did.

“My dad was in the military,” says Jason. “I'm like, fourth-generation military. I wasn’t pushed into it, but it was definitely a part of my life. So it came down to either going to college or going into the military, where they pay for college.

“And I thought, I can be a vehicle mechanic, which sounds great, 100 per cent. But I can be a vehicle mechanic in my garage, buy my own tools and build a car on my own time; you can't exactly go out and just build a fighter jet. So I was like, yeah, I'll take building fighter jets any day of the week.”

His father had a Nissan Maxima when Jason was growing up, but there were other Nissan vehicles that he’s lusted over since childhood. They all include the letter ‘Z’.

“The big thing for me was seeing the Datsun 240Z or 270Z, or the Nissan 300ZX at a car show, that was just nuts to me. They were such beautiful cars.”

But the latest 2023 Nissan Z, which just debuted last year, has also caught his eye.

“Right now I'm building a muscle car. I've never driven one, and if I don't enjoy driving this car, I'm gonna trade it in and get a Z. Because I absolutely love the look of the car, it's incredible.

“If I go to [auto] shows, what I would do is base the Frontier and the Z off of a theme, like having both sides of Nissan, essentially.”

As for the Frontier, Jason has put so much time into it that he says he’ll keep it until he ‘drives it into the ground’. But that won’t mean the end of his off-road time with a Nissan.

“When the engine and the transmission go, I'm going to swap in the Titan V8 and basically have a full Titan, just in the size of a Frontier.

“If I had to replace the truck entirely, then at that point, I probably would just go for the new Frontier, do the same build and go from there.”

That was eight years ago.

And to most people, Lexi, a dental hygienist in Kelowna, BC, may not be your typical Skyline owner, nor is she someone most people would think turns her own wrenches and keeps her classic Nissan supercar in order. But she is indeed, and she comes across it honestly, as her love of cars runs in the family.

“When I was younger, my dad always had classic American muscle cars that he would build and work on. So I was exposed to a lot of that when I was younger. And I think I just really became more interested in it over time.

“And then when I got my first car and something would break on it, I'd be really interested in helping my dad fix it or learn more about the vehicle.”

As Lexi got older, her knowledge of cars opened up beyond the North American market. “A buddy of mine actually had a Skyline in high school. And I just remember it was like the coolest thing I'd ever seen. It was right-hand drive, and it actually spit flames out the exhaust. I was like, oh my god, this is so cool. And so after high school, I imported my own Skyline from Japan. And the rest is history.” A brief conversation with her will confirm to anyone that she knows her car. She talks about how she had to solve the engine gremlins that were plaguing her Skyline when she picked it up, and then goes on to describe upgrading the fuel pump and fuel regulator, adding an external turbocharger waste gate and changing the clutch, among other jobs. But she’s not done yet.

“I like to call it my permanent project car because I'm always doing something on it,” she says. I'm always kind of, you know, messing with it. I have a YouTube channel so I'm always filming stuff and doing small upgrades here and there. And I want to pull the engine this summer and do a bunch of stuff. So it is drivable, when it's together. But there'll be periods throughout the summer when it's in pieces, and I'm just filming something or upgrading something.”

The Skyline obviously attracts plenty of interest from auto enthusiasts wherever she goes. But Lexi has had to deal with another type of reaction throughout her life when it comes to her automotive interests. Playing in a traditionally male-dominated field – and even owning her own classic supercar – has brought some unwanted backlash.

“Before I was a dental hygienist, I actually went to school to be an electrician. I know, cars and the electrician thing are both very male dominated. So I've kind of been dealing with the fact that I'm a woman in those areas for a long time and dealt with the issues that come up with that.

“Even to this day, driving my car around, I often have men say to me, ‘Oh, is that your boyfriend's car?’ It's more believable for it to be owned by a male in my family rather than it be mine. So I have no problem telling people, ‘No, actually, it's mine’. And it’s not about putting people in their place, but just standing up for myself.

“But I actually like being an example for other women who are wanting to get into cars or do something that's typically male dominated, it shouldn't stop people from trying to pursue their dreams. So whenever I see girls that are trying to pursue a trade, I always encourage them to try and stick with it and just push through all the sexism.”

Lexi’s wish list would include a brand-new Nissan GT-R, the Skyline’s descendant, in her driveway, but not as a replacement. In fact, she’ll be moving to Australia in the fall for a few years of living abroad, but she’ll keep the Skyline in her grandmother’s garage for when she returns. After all, you can never forget your first love.

Embrace your wild side.

Whether it’s getting the job done or escaping the city, the Frontier is ready to work hard and play hard.

learn more

Embrace your wild side.Whether it’s getting the job done or escaping the city, the Frontier is ready to work hard and play hard.

Learn More

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Living the thrill

Embrace your wild side.

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