NISSAN ALTIMA HYBRID
Be sure to 'click' on the thumbnail photos to see them in their full-size, and with their complete captions!
This is not at all a bad-looking car ... Altima hybrid will get about the same mileage as Toyota's Prius.
Be sure to 'click' on the thumbnail photos to see them in their full-size, and with their complete captions!
This is not at all a bad-looking car ... Altima hybrid will get about the same mileage as Toyota's Prius.
Nissan top executive, Carlos Ghosn, has said he doesn't believe gas/electric hybrids make economic sense for his (or any) car company. Maybe he should check Toyota's ledger sheets ...
If "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery', then Toyota must feel VERY flattered ... Nissan (and Porsche) is using the Toyota hybrid system for their first hybrid, though Nissan has announced their OWN hybrid system for a vehicle coming in the next two years ...
Altima's hybrid version is available only as a four-door (they need that extra room for the batteries, you know ...).
Here it is ... the best Toyota hybrid system you can buy in a Nissan ... But what the heck, Porsche is going to use Toyota's system, too, for their upcoming Cayenne hybrid next year ...
'Tuner-types' can easily see the possibilities of kicking-up the Sentra's looks with some minor mods ... And Nissan (and the aftermarket outfits) will have PLENTY of performance and appearance bits and pieces for the serious Sentra buyer ... We saw a bunch of them at SEMA in November, '06 ...
The 200 horsepower four-door sports car is back ... But this time it's packaged as a Sentra.
There was a time when American car-buyers were 'punished' for buying the 'low-end' car from a manufacturer. Those days are clearly over.
Sentra's SE-R Spec V is the topline in the Sentra class ... It's priced right, right-sized for a young family and definitely looks good.
Straight-on look at Sentra's rear deck ... With its 200 horses, it's a great sedan for a young family.
Looking just a bit like the original Honda Accord coupe (another true winner), Nissan's all-new Altima coupe is an eye-catcher, very classy and elegant.
Altima coupe's new interior styling appears as nice as the sheet metal body panels. Many say it's the best-looking car to come out of Nissan Design Internaional (NDI) in La Jolla, CA, since the latest-generation 'Z'.
Many LA Auto Show-goers thought this car was a concept --- But it's ready for sale in just a few months, Nissan's new Altima coupe. No hybrid version though; that's for the foor-door Altima only.
Nissan's all-new Altima coupe is USA-designed and appears to be a hit right out of the box --- Make that hit a 'home run'.
It's back! One of the best four-door sleepers of all time, Nissan's Sentra with a 200hp engine, limited slip front differential and more ... The Sentra SE-R Spec V.
Can you believe this is a Nissan coupe ready for production and sale? The all-new two-door Altima was designed at Nissan Design International in La Jolla, CA. Not bad, eh?
The Equinox is a production machine from Chevy, and GM engineers took all the hydrogen tanks, fuel cell stacks, batteries and electric motors from their 'Sequel' concept car, and fit them all into this good-looking truck.
While the fuel cell-powered Equinox was a highlight of the Chevy exhibit, their big pickups and SUVs got a lot more 'stage space'.
GM's engineers have taken the hydrogen-fueled fuel cells (which turn the fuel into electrciity with pure water vapor as the only emission) and all their attendant equipment, including the tanks to hold the hydrogen, and fit them all into what's very close to a production machine, in this case a Chevy Equinox.
Chevy's fuel cell/hydrogen/electric Equinox is the newest generation of what GM has been showing around the world as the 'Sequel'.
Take a standard Corvette $65,000 Z06 (of which only 4,000 have been made) and let Callaway have their way with it, as they have done now for some 30 years in the USA. They put on the blower, stiffen up the suspension (even more) and add even more horsepower to America's best-made street machine ... The 6 liter V8 will produce 616hp when they are through with it, about another $35,000 later. The car, called 'C16', is said to be capable of a 206 mph top speed and 0-60 in about 3.3 seconds). Yep, gimme an ALL-American sports car every time! You can have your prancing horses and the portholes on the fender of the Maserati (or as it is known in LA: "Junior's Ferrari") which makes it look like a lowered 1950s Buick ...
Drift through the exotic car' hall at the LA Show, looking at mostly last year's Lotus cars and the like (and really, how many Ferrari and Lamborghini and Bentley and Rolls-Royce cars can you look at anyway, until it all becomes overkill? And the WORST part is "asking permission" to come inside the ropes to take photos of their cars ... Shit, they are only cars, after all! And the companies want as much free press as they can get ...) THIS car caught our attention. Real AMERICAN power in a REAL American car. With Steve Saleen not exhibiting this year at the LA Show (and mysteriously so, as he is doing well, just finishing the build-out for the Ford GT on the assembly line built by his company in Dearborn, MI), this CALLAWAY CORVETTE from the company in Old Lyme, CT, was 512 horsepower of supercharged wet dreams for boys and girls.
Audi goes with an old-fashioned (but trunk-room friendly) cloth top for their first TT drophead model. PR folks try to impress upon media types that there is a "real glass window" within the cloth convertible top, as if that is something new (though it is welcome, as always, on this and other models). They tell us: No hardtop convertibles for Audi for the foreseeable future (which these days in the car business mean about six months).
Finally, a drop top on a good-looking car which makes it look even better ... to some. Other critics say TT might be one of those rare cars which actually looks better with the top UP. Wasn't the ultra-low hood line, the 'chopped' look, what Audi was trying to achieve with the original hardtop TT in the first place? And they hit a GRAND SLAM HOME RUN with that car, since intro'ing it at the LA Auto Show almost a decade or so ago.
If DCX is going to make more than 500 of these cars for sales to customers, then something is terribly wrong at the company. OK, folks may go for the styling, but where is the modern-day powerplant, drivetrain, where is the futuristic transmission? Good looker, no hit, as the baseball scout books say ...
OK, so what's the big idea? That a gigantic car company can take the same basic front engine/rear drive/Hemi-powered 2+2 they made some 40 years ago and IMPROVE upon it? Big Friggin' Deal! This particular concept, while other car-makers are showing hybrids, fuel cell, hydrogen, clean Bluetec and TDI diesel and all other manner of high-mileage and FUN cars, is possibly the biggest single insult to the American motoring public seen in some time. DCX should get on their knees and apologize to America ... And it is no wonder that European DCX stockholders want Chrysler OUT of the equation ... If this is the best they can come up with for the 21st century, I agree, unfortunately and sadly ... Maybe we SHOULD simply let Chrysler drown in their debt and their incredibly large amount of '05 and '06 cars and trucks still on dealer's lots (for which dealers are suing the company, by the way) ...