The Maximum Maxima!

Today's note is about one of my favorite cars: The Nissan Maxima.

The Maxima has been around for ages. It is to Nissan what the Accord is to Honda or the Camry to Toyota. Only that it's always been better than either. Now woa, you might say, better than either? That's not what popular belief would tell you. Well, if you want to be led like a sheep and believe what 'the crowd' believes, go right ahead. If you have a mind of your own and have read my previous blog in which I 'reveal' Honda's truth, well then guess what: the Japanese 'King' has been dethroned.

In production under the name of Maxima since the days of Datsun, the Maxima has gone through many different incarnations. I owned a 2003 SE and was stunned at how good it moved, how well-equipped it was and could only wonder how the hell could the other two Japanese manufacturers be on top over this vehicle! Along with the above-mentioned, the Maxima's VQ6, 3.5 liter, 255hp engine has been voted one of the top ten best engines in the world for the last 11 years! That is an incredible statistic! And I for one can attest to how well it drove.

The first thing that you notice is how light the car was made to feel. And I don't know how they did it. A well-insulated chassis, very little vibration made into the cabin. And the engine responded immediately. The only engine that I can think that reacts ever more quickly is BMW's 4.4 liter V8, a significantly larger engine. The steering was light but not over-boosted. The brakes were as immediate as was the sound coming out of the 6-cd Bose sound system.

In 2003, Nissan built the last "Japanese" Maxima, meaning that for North America, it would be the last Maxima built in Japan before they moved north American Maxima production to Canada. Now there's nothing wrong with that in theory but it wasn't too well received. As the generations of Maxima came and went, it went from a non-descript Japanese family sedan to a Japanese sports sedan. As you can see by the pictures above, they start with the 2003. Making a statement with the clustered HID headlights, the huge but tasteful spoiler on the trunk and the alloy five-spoke wheels, it made a statement: "Nissan is exciting!" And it was not a hopeful message, it was bang-on!

It was 'athletic', as good a word as I could come up with in the short time I owned it. (Sadly, it was destroyed in a five-car pile-up due to the ignorance of a driver who probably should never been driving and who (here's the insult), never suffered any injury to her vehicle!)

And then the next generation came along and it appeared to have gone wrong. Being the first Maxima built in North Americ for our market, it appeared... well, to use a term: "American"... fat and bulky and lazy. Don't get me wrong, I'm actually paraphrasing one of my best friend's comments about Americans and he himself IS American. As you can see in the second picture, the Maxima filled-in its curves. It got 'frumpy'. The only good change was probably the larger trunk. It had a novel option too, though, a sun-roof that wasn't a sunroof. It was a strip of tinted glass that ran along the center line of the car's roof. You could open slots in the ceiling that allowed the sun in but you couldn't open the glass partitions at all.

And it was the first Nissan to incorporate the now near-perfect CVT, (Continuously Variable Transmission). Now, what that means is there's no real gears. There are chain-link belts that run along two cones facing each other and they vary continuously between each one allowing more chain on one cone versus the other, allowing more speed versus more torque. In principal, it was a good idea. Fewer moving parts, less maintenance, more power to the wheels, better fuel efficiency. But there was one function in which this transmission suffered: No driving fun.

The 'shifts' were badly simulated, in which the engine would drop only 500rpms. In spirited driving, this was pathetic and lethargic. Throughout its existence, the Maxima was the sporty one vs. its Honda and Toyota brethren. But then when this version came out, its curves were gone. The light, athletic feel of driving it was gone too. It was never an ugly car but it was more like an Olympian who retired to become a sports-caster. You know the ones, those who can critique everything an athlete can do but they themselves no longer can.

And now comes the 2009 Maxima, as seen in the before-last picture. Back are the curves, the sporty look, the message of athleticism. Basically, the Maxima's back! As you can see by it's curves, Nissan must have studied a variety of cover models of Maxim but this car has some seriously feminine-inspired curves. C'mon, you see it! The hips, the narrow waist, the shoulders. If you analyze it further, you can almost see 'other' curves that I won't mention here. And those curves serve a strict purpose: they help airflow around the car. Even the hood is sealed within, with two large rubber 'bladders' running down the inside to keep the world from creeping inside the engine bay. The seams where the hood and the fenders meet is so smooth and shallow. And when inside looking out, again you see those wonderful curves. The view on the driver's outside mirror is almost perverted.

From the arrowhead headlights to the taillights that look like they're barely catching up, the new Maxima doesn't stop impressing with only the exterior's redesign. The interior was most certainly not forgotten either. As Nissan is the parent-company of Infiniti and as Infiniti targets BMW as Lexus targets Mercedes-Benz, the interior of the Maxima truly takes some very obvious cues from two of BMW's fleet: the 5 and 7 series cars.

From the paddle-shifters behind the steering wheel, (you can 'row' through the gears with the gear-shifter in Tiptronic, too), and the electric privacy curtain hiddne in the rear window's shelf, you can see the hints of the 5-series. And then there's the radio and seperate climate controls for the rear passengers located in the rear-seat's fold-down central console, again, taken from BMW's 7-series.

But the Maxima's not just a pretty face. The sports-ness of it is back too. I've driven three, all with the so-called Tech-packages and the 20-inch tires. I honestly could not tell that under those fenders were 20 inches of rubber. It's light and athletic responsiveness was back too. But more importantly, the 'shifts' were far more "real", if I can say that about a CVT. That's right, it's still a CVT but now you'd be heard-pressed to guess it if you weren't told. Now under aggressive but playful driving, the CVT will down-shift over 1500 to 2500 rpms. There's a convincing pull when the transmission shifts one gear to another. And the paddle-shifting is the best I've sampled. The shift-paddles were taken from the notorious GT-R, only without the leather trim on the blades.

When driving this car, I couldn't help but scream aloud that "NISSAN, YOU FINALLY GOT IT RIGHT!" As a sporty driver who hates shifting with a clutch, (I know, it's a contradiction), I would accept this CVT without hesitation. It was immediate, it was noticeable, let's face it, in such driving conditions, you want the car to 'tell' what's happening in response to your inputs. The newly revised VQ35 3.5 liter 290hp, growled superbly when I dropped the hammer and asked this relatively virgin engine to pull this machine to 160km/h! Going up a local highway route, I was more involved in what the car was telling me when I noticed we were ripping along towards 180km/h when we blew past a provincial police cruiser in the median. He never saw us!

Along with the above-mentioned performance plays, this car is very well equipped electronically. From the DVD-based Navigation 6-cd Bose sound system, the adaptive cruise control and the 5-million way adjustable driver's seat, there's just no displeasure to be found in this car. Another original idea, and it pleased my 7 year-old son to no end, you can have a traditional sunroof as well as a sunroof AND a rear sun-screen in the roof. They are also both have a hide-away screen that completely blocks out the sun when extended that is controlled by a simple button on the center console.

I can tell you that this is no slab-sided frumpy Japanese wish-I-was car. I can openly say it has one short-coming: it is front-wheel drive. There is no problem with the FWD as a concept. But when it comes to performance driving, it's better to have rear-wheel drive, if only because you can take corners and slaloms at a higher rate of speed. When it comes to front-wheel drive, no matter how well designed a suspension is, a front-wheel drive car will over-steer no matter what. no matter how well you point the nose in the direction you want to go, the car will go wide in the turn. Over-steer where the rear of the car starts to come out, it actually allows you more control over the direction the car will go, despite the perception that you no longer have control.

Anyway, if you want a thrilling, practical, stylish car that just delivers an amazing combination of sports car and sedan, the Maxima's it. You can can say it's the Maximum car. Try one on your own, find it's sweet points, enjoy its curves, the equipment packages. You'll see it's so much different than its counterparts.