Nissan's truck team celebrates the 2016 Nissan Titan XD being named the Truck of Texas by the Texas Auto Writers Association.

Perhaps no state is more identifiable with pickup trucks than Texas. If your truck can make it there, well, to borrow a line from a song not about Texas, it can make it anywhere.

Each year the Texas Auto Writers Association (TAWA) host sis annual Truck Rodeo to determine which truck is the king of the hill and will be named “Truck of Texas.” In what may come as a complete shocker to anyone not employed by Carlos Ghosn, the 2016 Nissan Titan XD capture the honor.

It’s the first time a Nissan has taken the honor and considering that it had to beat out difficult competition from domestic makers that are almost always the favorites for this honor.

“Of the hundreds of thousands of miles driven during the development of the all-new 2016 Titan XD, the miles driven by the truck experts of the Texas Auto Writers Association were the most critical miles driven to date as we prepare to launch our new truck,” said Fred Diaz, senior vice president, Sales & Marketing and Operations, U.S.A., Nissan North America, Inc.

The 2016 Nissan Titan XD is the top truck in Texas this year over Ford, GM and Ram competitors.

“This prestigious Truck of Texas award gives us tremendous validation heading into the Titan XD launch in December. We are humbly honored to accept this award.”

The trucks are put through two days of testing by the writers, and in this year’s event not only did the Titan take home the top honor, it also captured three other honors: Luxury Pickup Truck of Texas, Off-Road Pickup Truck of Texas and Best Powertrain for its standard Cummins 5.0-liter V8 Turbo Diesel engine.

“This was the largest Truck Rodeo in the history of TAWA,” said Mike Marrs, president, TAWA. “We had 69 journalists evaluating 80 vehicles. To win on this stage, with this level of competition is an accomplishment Nissan should be very proud of.”

The truck market is as competitive as ever with Ford’s F-150 and GM full-size models slugging it out for sales supremacy as the Ram jumped into the fray carving out a bigger chunk of sales than its held in the past.

(Nissan previews product assault for Tokyo Motor Show. For more, Click Here.)

The trucks have had to go to extremes to differentiate themselves with Ford introducing aluminum body panels to save on weight and improve mileage, while GM tweaked its powerplants to in order to improve mileage and Ram rolled out it’s EcoDiesel to accomplish the same task.

At the same time, they are acting like trucks: hauling, towing and running through mud and muck. However, they’re also affording owners luxury touches and sophisticated technologies at unprecedented levels. A tall task to top for a truck that’s never really even sniffed this honor.

The Titan XD scaled the mountaintop by essentially finding a niche that it wasn’t really being served by the existing offerings: the mix of traditional heavy-duty and light-duty entries. The new design combines the capability of a heavy-duty hauler with the drivability and affordability of a light-duty pickup, according to Nissan.

(Click Here for a review of the new 2016 Toyota Tacoma.)

Power comes from a 310-horsepower Cummins 5.0-liter V8 Turbo Diesel with 555 ft-lb of torque mated to a heavy-duty six-speed Aisin automatic transmission, which also nabbed the Titan this year’s Best Powertrain in addition to its three other honors. The result? A beast capable of towing 12,000 pounds: heavy-duty performance in a light-truck package.

“Nissan has taken a unique approach with its new Cummins powertrain,” Marrs added. “The power, torque and efficiency of the Cummins 5.0-liter V8 Turbo Diesel resonated very well with TAWA.”

Nissan fared well taking home six awards in all, including the 2015 Murano named as the midsize CUV of Texas. Fiat Chrysler was the big winner in terms of number of awards taking home eight honors, mostly for its Jeep line-up.

(To see more about Ford expanding aluminum use into 2017 Super Duty, Click Here.)

The SUV of Texas was the 2016 Ford Explorer, the CUV of Texas was the 2016 Volvo XC90 and the Truck line of Texas was Ford.