There is one of these on sale in Denmark and the dealer does not know how to sell it. Look at these photos.
I wonder if is there money to be made in offering a photography service for cars? The seller is trying to flog this rather good car for about €7000 and has made every mistake possible in taking the photos. The photo above shows the car with the sun illuminating the side we can’t see. In this photo the car is just too damn big to get into the photo. I suppose there was a wall stopping the photographer from getting far enough back:
I like the nice and low window line. As a sidebar, Lincoln produced a brochure for the 2004 Continental where every shot of the car was cropped so the car touched the edges of the photo, which was quite a clever conceit. I have not seen it repeated. And here is as uninformative an interior shot as you could imagine, short of taking the photo in the boot with the lid closed:
My uncle had one of these cars and I considered him a jerk for so doing. I rescind that estimation since the Maxima was rather a pleasant car, if anonymous in its styling. Autocar also like the Maxima and rated its ride, performance and comfort but felt the badge lacked prestige. This has to be one of the most inane reasons to mark down a car since it has no bearing on whether the machine is in itself a worthy contender for our interest.
The 3.0 litre V6 turned out 183 HP and it had a mere 1575 kg to pull. Nought to sixty could be reached in 8.3 seconds which is what a 1981 Jaguar XJ-S V12 managed. Honest John rates the car as follows: “Smooth, refined engines. Stacked full of creature comforts. Proving reliable”. Counting against it: “Bland drive and innocuous looks. Brake discs susceptible to warping”. You can always get the discs repaired and then have a smooth and exclusive car. Another way of looking at is that you could have a roomier and more reliable car than a V12 Jaguar for a modest sum. That ought to make up any raised eyebrows it might produce.
To my surprise, the car was still being offered by Nissan UK in 2001 and there is one for sale for £4000 with only 15,000 miles on the clock. This photo is a bit overexposed but still not as incompetent as the Danish car.
From memory, this is the car that was launched in the UK – possibly elsewhere – under the strap-line of “It exists!”. I mention this as I think it fuelled some of the rather snide coverage it received at launch. It’s an invisible car that left almost no trace.
I remember (doubtless incorrectly) that the veteran journalist Peter Dron found that this generation of Maxima suffered from a touch of lift off oversteer, to the point where he found himself hurtling arse first off the tarmac at the Millbrook Proving Ground. Apparently the car came to a halt without suffering any visible damage, but wouldn’t restart until it suddenly ejected a two foot core sample of turf and soil from the exhaust.
I would love to read that article. What on earth was going on such that a QX was asked to hurtle around a proving ground.