Holy Crap, You Could Get A Fast Altima In The 2000s: MotorWeek Roundup
Sedans are on their way out the door. And what’s left of the affordable ones are slow. Honda and Toyota are adopting hybrid setups, Nissan only offers one engine (the bad one) and nothing seems fast anymore.
But fast was considered pretty normal, once upon a time. At the peak of Nissan’s Revival Plan, the idea of forcing a meaty V-6 under the hood wasn’t a crazy one. For just under $23,000 that’s exactly what it did.
If there was a most improved version of the Nissan Altima, it’s the L32 generation. Seeing considerable growth in every dimension, the 2002 Altima was a handsome affair with a clean slate to try and take the sales crown away from Toyota’s Camry and the Honda Accord.
Welcome to a pilot edition of MotorWeek Roundup! The long-running PBS program has introduced no shortage of cars to me as a kid, as well as some particular models that I never knew existed! What better way to celebrate John Davis’ half-century-long career than to look back on his greatest hits?
Big Altima Energy is usually reserved for a beater sedan with bumps, bruises, and scrapes that’s a right of passage for the sixty-ninth owner that comes in possession of it. But it can have positive meaning and John H. Davis is on hand to explain why. Once upon a time, you could get the greatest engine ever put under the hood of a Nissan, a 3.5 V-6 dubbed ‘VQ’ that appeared in the 350Z sports car and loads of Infinitis.
In Altima form, it produced 240 horsepower and 246 pounds-feet of torque. With a 5-speed manual transmission, that was good enough for a zero-to-sixty time of just 5.9 seconds. 5.9 in 2001! That’s good enough to rival some prestigious sports cars such as the Audi TT 3.2 and the Porsche Boxster. Despite being a sedan, it carried some serious performance.
The rest of the clip is what you’ll understand as typical MotorWeek. I won’t derive you of the joy from watching it. This is from the era right before Nissan quality fell off for the next decade or so. From a used car perspective in present times though, a V-6-powered Nissan Altima from 2002-2006 is a safe bet.
-TA