Last month, Nissan introduced the 2013 Altima at the New York International Auto Show. The redesigned Altima has its sights set directly at the Toyota Camry, with the goal of toppling its position at the top of the sales charts. Altima is at number two currently, a spot it has remained in a for a while. To provide a more compelling and premium feeling package, Nissan drew heavily from the larger Maxima sedan’s styling. The two cars look incredibly familiar, making you wonder if Maxima sales will suffer any.
Autoblog reports now that the Japanese automaker has begun to work on the next-generation Maxima. In their article, they’ve uncovered some interesting information about the Maxima. It is a bit of a sleeper success for Nissan, selling 59,000 units last year. That is good enough to make it the country’s top-selling “V-6 non-luxury sedan.” The higher asking price results in juicier profit margins as well.
The current car is billed as a “Four-Door Sports Car” but in our minds that is just marketing jargon. For one, the Maxima Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) and doesn’t include any hard core performance iterations. Front-wheel drive is also a damper to sporting aspirations. For the next car we’d like to see a more aggressive design and true performance credentials. Don’t expect any change in that regard though, as Nissan will want to avoid negatively impacting sales of the Infiniti G. Also, given sales are quite good as they are, there isn’t much incentive to make a big change. AB says to expect the car to launch in 2015.
