Nissan Delivers Stylish Fun with Altima Coupe
Test Drive: Nissan delivers stylish fun with Altima coupe Even though front-wheel-drive coupes aren't big sellers, Nissan took the financial risk to develop a sleek, two-door version of the redesigned 2008 Altima sedan and came up with a terrific mainstream coupe. Its stylish silhouette rivals the beauty of Nissan's Infiniti G35 luxury coupe (Test Drive, March 15). That might annoy those who paid twice as much for the Infiniti, but surely will appeal to those who want much of the G's visual cachet for considerably less money. "Every body panel is different from the (Altima) sedan, except the hood. The investment was significant," says John Curl,. an Altima product manager. "We didn't want to just build a two-door sedan." Power delivery in the V-6, regular-production test car was delightful. Nissan seems to have proprietary voodoo it works on CVTs (continuously variable automatic transmissions) to keep them from feeling like a manual transmission with a slipping clutch, as some rival CVTs do. Nail the throttle and there's a definite, solid downshift to a lower gear ratio for fast acceleration. No brutal revving of the engine without commensurate leap of the vehicle. Whatever Nissan does to the pulleys-and-belt CVT elevates it to the level of pleasing, appealing and satisfying. Handling of the loaded, $31,980 test car was sufficient for most drivers most of the time. The coupe's suspension is tuned differently than the sedan's, giving the two-door a crisper driving feel, which is an accomplishment because the Altima sedan feels pretty crisp and agile and sporty.
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