by Smartie Pants

Created on: July 16, 2007

About 15 years ago, when Japanese luxury cars had us first mesmerized and the Stanza sales stagnated Nissan released the Altima as a kind of sport luxury but cheap car. Early reviews were pretty mixed.

Five generations an Altima, one click down from the flagship, has established it place. The Altima is the whatever you want anywhere in the middle car. From the 2.5 four cylinder model that makes a 175 hp with the very basics amenities for 20K to an Ultimate Altima with the 3.5 V-6 with 270 horses, a C-CVT tranny optioned out either sporty or techy, (they won't let you do both) for about 33K or you could dress up the four banger for about 29K, or you can go for the Hybrid, with borrowed Toyota technology for somewhere right in the middle dressed or undressed. So, with so many definitions of the Altima you got to add in their coupe, which isn't a two door version of the sedan but an entirely different car, looks the same in the front but is essentially a partially dressed infinity G35 from the windshield back in both the 2.5 and the 3.5, but not the hybrid with a different set of options that that you can mix and match however you chose with the base car being slightly more expensive than the sedan, but the fancy one a little cheaper.

So it's fairly tough to say what an Altima really is. How fast, luxurious, green, how it handles, what's it based on, even who designed the drive train, Altimas look like Altimas
All of them from the front, but then the coupes look like a G35 from the back. One last thing, some of them are made in Tennessee and some made in the previously"quality challenged" Mississippi plant. So if your friend comes in beaming telling you that he just got a new Altima, he didn't tell you what kind of car he got. Gee, I'm getting thirsty, maybe I'll have a Black cherry Diet Jazz Pepsi plus, do they have that one decaffeinated? In the 20 oz plastic bottle? Freedom of choice?

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