In a Nutshell: More or less, but not exactly, a FWD cousin of the RWD Infiniti G35/G37 Coupes.

The Altima nameplate has been in production since the early 1990s, when Nissan introduced the all-new, mid-sized Altima sedan to replace the long-running but not particularly popular Stanza series. Nissan had tried numerous marketing and advertising tricks and incentives (I remember them well) to convince auto shoppers that the Stanza was a better buy than the Accord and Camry (even back then, the Accord, Camry, and Taurus dominated the mid-sized sedan market). Finally, Nissan management just gave up on the Stanza and decided to do an all-new car. The new car was much more rounded style-wise, had far better ergonomics and control layout inside, was well-designed and well-built (though the orange wood trim was rather cheesy), and in general, was one of my favorite sedans of the period, along with the also-new FWD/AWD Subaru Impreza and the 1990-95 generation Mazda Protege (I owned a 1990 Protege).

The new Altima went on to be a general sales success (more so than the Stanza had been), but, predictably, did not sell in Camry/Accord numbers...few cars, of course, did. It was, IMO, a pleasure to drive, with an aura of quality all around it, a nice interior, and a smooth drivetrain. In fact, I thought the first-generation Altima was clearly the best. The second and third-generation models clearly lost a lot of their original solidness, build quality, good reliability record, and pleasant interiors.......especially after Nissan got into financial trouble, was bought out by Renault, and Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn started the now-famous cost-cutting and El Cheapo interiors (and I DO mean CHEAP). The new Ghosn-era Altimas, with their somewhat wierd exterior styling and the insultingly cheesy-looking dash, may have helped Nissan back towards profitability but turned a lot of people off while doing so, though some sports-oriented customers liked the new clear-lens taillights with the red, amber, and clear bulbs inside. The cheapness of the new Altima was by no means limited to that car alone....it affected much of the Nissan-Infiniti lineup at that time.

Nissan, however, did have a long-standing reputation for one thing, though.....the well-designed 3.0L V6. That engine, later increased to 3.5L and 3.7L liter displacements, was on the list of auto enthusiasts' and auto magazine Best Engines for years. It was powerful, smooth, refined, and durable. Even Ghosn, with his cost-cutting, could see that, and wisely did not discontinue it.....the rest, of course, is history, and it had been the Nissan Bread-and-Butter engine ever since. Today, in modified form, it still powers a large percentage of the corporation's vehicles.

In 2001-2002, Infiniti introduced a more-expensive, RWD, more sport-oriented version of the basic Altima platform, known as the G35. A short time later, AWD versions, known as G35X, and two-door G35 coupes were also introduced. All three of them got rave reviews in the auto press (despite cheap interiors) and, among enthusiasts, were compared in many ways to the long-running BMW 3-series. Nissan introduced the long-awaited 350Z on a slightly shortened RWD version of the platform, but, of course, it was marketed as a pure, harder-edged sports car (especially the top-line 350Z Track version) rather than as a sport-sedan or sport-coupe like the G35. The G35 coupe shared the 350Z's basic platform and drivetrain, but had a different interior, dash, slightly longer wheelbase, front and rear styling, a small back seat, a slightly retuned engine, and generally sold to a different crowd and price range from the typical 350Z buyer. Recently the G35 series got the new larger-displacement 3.7L engine...hence the name change to G37.

So now, for 2008, the two-door Altima coupe has been added to this field. Despite the Altima name and FWD layout, It is much different from most Altima sedans to date, though it more or less shares some driving characteristics with the Altima V6 SE-R sport sedan. Its basic styling is roughly similiar to the G35/37 coupe and, a little less so, to the smaller 350Z's....the main differences being in the grille, headlights, and trunk lid. The new Altima coupe, for reasons I don't know (perhaps Renault/Nissan management can tell us), did not get the G37's new engine. My guess is for Infiniti marketing reasons. However, the Altima coupe, even with the CVT, is still no slouch.....it makes do with a plenty-powerful 270 HP version of the 3.5L with 258 ft-lbs. of torque. And Nissan engineers have done an excellent job of integrating this engine, transmission,chassis, FWD layout, and steering system to the point where it produces almost no torque steer, even under heavy throttle, and produces almost RWD-like handling.....at least at lower speeds. More FWD-like understeer sets in as you start to corner harder.....more on that below.

Four versions of the Altima coupe are offered; two four-cylinder 2.5 S models with either 6-speed manual or CVT, and two V6 3.5 SE models with either 6-speed or CVT. Both S and SE lines offer either transmission for the same price. The coupe's interior has been noticeably improved over the previous-generation Altima sedan.....Nissan has been promising better interiors lately, and, as with new Infinitis, apparantly is delivering. The car is not cheap by any means, but is somewhat lower-priced than its brother G37 coupe (perhaps one reason it didn't get the 3.7L).

So, let's take a better look at the car now, in more detail:

Model Reviewed: 2008 Nissan Altima 3.5 SE Coupe

Base price: $25,470

Major Options:
Floor Mats $175
Premium Package: $3200
Aluminum Kick Plates: $85

Destination: $625

List Price as Reviewed: $29,555*

*This particular car was marked up to $31,048 on a second sticker with pin stripes and "Adjusted Market Value"

Exterior Color: Azure Blue

Interior: Blonde Leather (No, I'm not kidding....that's what Nissan calls it)

Drivetrain: FWD, Transverse-mounted 3.5L VVT V6, 270 HP @ 6000 RPM, Torque 258 ft-lbs. @ 4400 RPM,
Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) with manual mode.


PLUSSES:

Plenty of torque......once the RPM's start building.

Choice of manual or CVT transmission for the same price ($25,470).

Relatively free of torque steer despite FWD layout and high torque.

Nicely done paint job.

Killer Bose stereo.

Extra trunk-lid carpeting helps absorb rear-end noise.

Superlative gauges, buttons, and controls.

Turn signals mounted on outside mirrors (SE only).

Good handling for a FWD chassis.

Well-done brakes.

CVT transmission transmits power nicely.

Easy-to-use, precise shifter.

Much better interior than previous Altima models.

Nice, matte-wood trim (Blonde interiors only).

Exterior trim well-done.

Clever push-button ignition system with battery-run-down reserve key.


MINUSES:

(Apparantly) no Limited-Slip-Differential listed in spec or option sheet.

More understeer than its sister Infiniti G35/G37 coupes.

Only 2 non-dull paint colors (out of 7 offered).

Smallish trunk space.

Cheesy silver steering-wheel trim.

Hood propped up manually with prop rod.

Flimsy outside mirrors.

Outside mirrors on 4-cylinder S version are fixed and do not swivel.

Dummy spare tire and wheel.

Limited front-seat headroom for tall people.

Munchkin-sized rear seat (this is, however, expected in a coupe this size).

V6 engine crammed in underhood much too tightly.

Relatively stiff ride (by my tastes)....again, this is more or less expected in a sporty coupe.

Torque curve somewhat peaky on the v6.


The first impression you get of this car as you walk up to it, not surprisingly considering the way I've described it, is its similarity to the G35/37 coupe and 350Z. It has the same general overall exterior shape, though the grille, headlights, taillights, and trunk lid of the Altima coupe are a little different. The Altima's trunk lid rides up a little higher, in kind of a mini-Chris Bangle sweep, though trunk room is not helped much...more on that in a minute. The grille and headlights are slightly modified versions of what we have seen on some other recent Nissan products, with their trapezoid and up-sweep shapes. But the car, overall, has quite a pleasing shape, and, IMO, is clearly one of the better-looking coupes on the market. The paint work is nicely done, with virtually no orange peel, and a smooth, even application, but was not not particularly shiny in most of the colors I saw there. And, once again, it was mostly funeral home and dentist-office paint colors, including two shades of gray...only the bright Azure Blue and Code Red tended to open your eyes. The doors opened and shut reasonably solidly...my car had the optional ($85) aluminum door kick-plates (they call it aluminum but it was hard to tell if it was real aluminum or plastic).

The exterior hardware and trim is pretty good except for the swiveling, rather flimsy-feeling twin outside mirrors with their built-in turn signal bulbs (base S-model cars get rigid-mounted mirrors with no turn signals). The outside sheet metal is OK...not quite VW/Audi-grade in solidness, but reasonably thick, and the hood and trunk, like the doors, close reasonably solidly.

Under the hood, though, things need some improvement. First, a car in this price range (29-30K) needs something more than a simple, swing-up prop rod to support the hood... the new $17,000 Subaru Impreza, an entry-level car, has twin gas struts. Second, the engineers managed to cram the 3.5 into the limited amount of space, but it is a nightmare (maybe another reason the car didn't get the 3.7). The 3.5 fits in there tighter than Dolly Parton wearing Twiggy's bra. There is virtually no space at all between the sides of the engine and the inner fenders/firewall....this could affect air circulation around the engine for cooling, although I'm sure the engineers have well-tested it in hot weather. What little is otherwise reachable inside the hood is covered up by numerous black plastic covers...only a few things like oil/dipstick and a few fluid reservoirs are exposed. I pity the mechanics, technicians, and some of the car's owners who will actually try and work on an engine like this... the engineers just don't deem to think much about them anymore.

Inside, the car is a noticeable step up from many recent Nissan products. The well-done seats (power for the driver, manual for the passenger) have nice, quality-feeling leather, are well-shaped for support even for wide people like me (though the seat-back cushion is a little short for my tastes) and have nice, convenient intuitive-shaped knobs for operation. Leather or cloth is offered depending on trim and option level. Nissan calls the beige versions of both the cloth and leather "Blonde"...quite unusual. As in many other vehicles, wood-trim goes with the beige, and metallic-trim with the dark interiors. The wood trim on the doors and console was just the way I like it....brown matte-finish, without a lot of gloss, and good-looking, though with perhaps just a little too much swirl to it. The interior hardware, chrome door handles, and controls were almost all well done...the only thing I didn't like, quality-wise, was the cheesy-looking silver paint/texture of the trim on the steering wheel spokes, surrounding the column-mounted buttons. The turn-signal lever could have worked a little more solidly, but was no big deal.

The gauges, in their design, were superb...just about as clear as clear can get, although I have never been a fan of the yellow-orange Nissan/Infiniti dash lighting or of the red-orange in BMW's, Audis and Pontiacs...I tend to like white or the blue shades that VW uses. The dash buttons and controls were clear, well-marked, easy to use, slick-feeling, and, on some of them, had nice chrome rings. The stereo was a killer Bose unit, with easy-to use buttons and controls in this non-Nav car....I mean this was some GOOD sound, almost to the Lexus Mark Levinson level.

Headroom in front, in this low-slung, sunroof-equipped coupe, was pretty much what you would expect... tight, though the wide range of the power controls for the driver's seat and the manual tilt-telescoping steering column allowed me to fit in OK under the low roof. I was not, however, able to fit in as well on the passenger's side because the more-limited manual seat controls did not allow as much freedom of seat motion (I'm 6'2"...more than that with my ubiquitous baseball cap). Legroom was no problem... the front seats go back fine for tall people, though I tend to sit up a little closer than most people my height.

Back-seat room? Forget it. The seat and roofline are clearly not fit for normal adults. Consider the back seat either a shelf to lay your packages, a seat for small children, or for very small adults at best. However, to be fair, one does not expect... or get.. a Suburban when you buy a relatively small or mid-sized coupe.

Back in the trunk, it is quite well-finished, with several pieces of nice gray carpeting on the floor, sides, and an extra one on the underside of the lid itself to help absorb road noise. Unlike the hatchback 350Z, the Altima Coupe has a separate trunk lid, and, in this particular design, it limits the trunk-height size somewhat. The trunk is fairly wide and long, but is shallow, and tall items don't fit in well. Pull up the carpet and spare-tire cover on the floor and you are greeted with an ubiquitous dummy-spare and wheel instead of a real wheel and tire....another shortcoming, IMO, in a $30,000 car.

OK, along with the SE-R sedan, this is the driver's Altima, so let's do that......drive. The Altima coupe is up-to-date in the ignition department......with the proximity key witihn 30 feet, put your foot on the brake, hit the dash-mounted button, and Old Faithful 3.5 fires right up after a couple of seconds and settles into a smooth but not particularly quiet idle...being a sport-oriented car, the engineers, of course, gave the exhaust line some noise. The "key" has an ingenious electronic feature that gives you an emergency start, without jumping, if the car's battery goes dead.....plug it into the computer-port under the dash, hit the button, and you get just enough power in the ignition system to crank the starter over and allow you to drive to the nearest repair shop. Nifty idea....jump starts, while they ususally work, can be hard (and risky) on modern car electronic systems. It's usually best to avoid them wherever possible.

The 3.5 engine is a real gem, and fully deserving of the accolades it has gotten through the years, although the torque curve in the tuning of this particular version was a little peaky for my tastes. There's plenty of power (accompanied by the sporty exhaust drone) to shove you well back in your seat, but you have to get to about 3000-3500 RPM to start to feel it....roughly like turbocharging. Even when the power comes on, though, there is little if any torque steer...certainly not the levels seen in previous high-powered FWD Nissans. There is plenty of reserve power at higher road speeds, and while this is not the fastest coupe out there, it is far from embarrassing...it will definitely get out of its own way.

The CVT transmission in my test car was smooth, quiet, unobtrusive, and efficient, although the typical rubber-banding, "motorboat" drivetrain effect common to many CVT's was not entirely absent. In the automatic-Drive position, the RPMs would climb first, then the car's speed would pick up....sometimes quite rapidly. But, in the manual-shift-gate position, the engineers, like on some other CVT's, have programmed in several "gear" ranges that simulate a conventional automatic. Push of pull the lever back and forth with the (+) and (-) marks and the transmission feels like it is shifting gears as it goes up and down in drive ranges. I had some misgivings at first about the transmission's potential durability (Ford recently dropped its CVT's from the AWD V6 Five Hundred/Taurus and replaced it with a conventional 6-speed auto ), but Audi has used CVT's in high-powered V6's for awhile without a lot of problems.....so, only time will tell with this car. The transmission's shifter was smooth, precise, crisp, well-designed, and had a solid feel.

I did not see an LSD (Limited-Slip-Differential) listed anywhere on the spec or option sheet, but the car felt, for the most part, like it didn't need one. Cornering, with the low stance and low center of gravity, was flat, with a minimum of body roll, and I can't imagine raising an inside front wheel in this car in anything approaching sane driving. Steering feel was quite light and feathery at parking-lot speeds, but increased noticeably with road speed, though you would not mistake it for a BMW or Porsche. Steering response, for a front-driver, was quite good, especially at lower speeds, where the front end would respond almost instantly, but as speed increased, the differences between this car's FWD layout and the G35/37's RWD layout became more pronounced...even with the Sport Suspension standard on the V6 SE model, the Altima coupe started to show more understeer as cornering speeds got higher and you started to push it more. It was not severe or mushy by any means (in fact, it was quite good), but just a little more noticeable than on the RWD Infinitis.

The ride, as you would expect of a sport-oriented coupe, was rather stiff (for my tastes), but not quite sports-car stiff...it was noticeably less firm than its pure sports-car brother 350Z, especially the 350Z Track model. I would recommend avoiding rough roads with it, but on a smooth surface, there is no problem. And compared to some cars with rock-hard suspensions I've driven like the Mitsubishi Evo and early-generation Miatas, the ride was not bad at all. And the noise level, outside of the occasional bark of the sporty exhaust on hard acceleration, was not bad either....partly due to the extra insulation under the trunk lid helping to filter out road noise in back and the fairly well-sealed doors helping out with wind noise.

The brakes were pleasant to use, too......quick response, fairly firm pedal without much sponginess, good pedal spacing for big feet and shoes, evenness of feel/modulation, and the usual electronic baking aids common nowadays on higher-performance cars. However, in a panic stop (though I didn't actually try one), the more weight-balanced G35/37 and 350Z would probably stop in a shorter distance.....their RWD platforms let the rear wheels do a little more of their share of the braking loads as opposed to the nose-heaviness of a FWD layout, with the car even more nose-heavy as the weight transfers forward on hard braking. Still, for most normal, sane driving, the Altima coupe's brakes perform very well, especially for a FWD layout.

The Verdict?

Nissan, IMO, has done an outstanding job of producing what is essentially a more affordable alternative to the G37 coupe. Both are good-looking, have plenty of power, are reasonably well-built, and have sharp steering and handling....though the G37's slightly greater HP/torque and RWD layout (with the possibility of AWD to come), as described above, gives it a little less understeer and a little more response when you push it hard. (I base this on my experience with the G35 ad M35.....I have not actually driven a G37). Both have nice, tasteful, well-done interiors....much better, IMO, than that of the 350Z. And neither car, while not exactly Town-Car plush, rides quite as stiff as the 350Z either. Though the ride with the SE's sport-tuned suspension was still a little stiff for my tastes, overall I enjoyed driving the Altima coupe. The dead-battery function on the ignition key is a good and clever idea. Quality-wise, it is much better than most other recent Nissan products, though a few cheesy things like the hood prop-rod, the flimsy outside mirrors, and dummy spare tire-wheel still remain. And the way the V6 engine is crammed in and sealed off underhood could use a big improvement....a major target, perhaps, for the next redesign.

If you don't need the slightly more balanced handling at the limit that the RWD G37 gives, or the wet/snow traction that the AWD G37, soon to debut, will give, I highly recommend looking at this car before buying its more expensive cousins. Its power and handling is everything you could want short of track conditions, the price is not cheap, but very reasonable for what you get (though dealer price-gouging could be a problem while the car is still new), and parts and service is likely to be less than for the G37. Insurance, however, is a question mark (?)... both are high-powered coupes. Still, there are lots worse ways in the automotive world to spend $30,000.