Hard to find with a 5-speed! I test drove one once but didn't end up buying that one. And yes, that 3.5 is awesome - aluminum block, forged crank, etc, and it's super nice to have the extra torque in 4 lo off-road over the 3.3 in the Xterra. If you decide on going with the R50, see if you can find one with a manual transfer case. That's the way to go over the electronic one if you plan to use it off-road a lot. The one I was driving was an electric one, which worked fine, but it was sometimes picky on when it would engage, and it was kinda slow... the manual ones are so simple and reliable, it's hard to beat.
Yep, that's what mine was. 5 speed and stick transfer case.
Mine was an '02 so it had the Xterra-style wind deflector and luggage rack, which I thought looked great. I bought it in 2016 and it only had 125k miles on it. Sold it a year later with maybe 130k (I pretty much only drove it to work and back, or around town on weekends.)
I sometimes wish I could have kept it. It was one of those weird things where it was the absolute perfect vehicle - but not perfect for ME. When I listed it for sale people were coming out of the woodwork to buy it. The people who ended up buying it tried to lowball me on the price. When I turned down their lowball offer I showed them my phone which had been blowing up with people wanting it and said "OK, think about it if you want to but I won't guarantee that it will still be available tomorrow." They changed their minds real quick.
Honestly, I should have asked more for it but that's OK, I still feel like I got a fair price for what was then a 15 year old vehicle. Listed it at about 4:00 on Friday afternoon and had it sold and gone by 10:00 Saturday morning.
Pretty much the only upgrades I had to make were tires and a stereo that would connect to my iPhone (which I installed myself via Crutchfield.) It needed nothing else, but of course I didn't really "off road" with it either since I already had a lifted Suburban on 33's (yet another reason to sell it, I didn't really need another 4x4.)