Nissan has successfully packed space for five into a very compact package. Rear legroom is the best in class, and you won’t feel bad for stuffing your friends back there.

It’s hard to say exactly what first draws the eye to the 2003 Nissan 350Z.  It might be the grille-less nose, or those big wheels.  Maybe it’s the silhouette, which seems to slope away on all sides from a single point in the middle of the roof.  It’s certainly not the Nissan badge, because all during our test drive people were asking, “What kind of car is this?” in spite of the prominent nomenclature front and rear.

The new 350Z is an all-out, front-engine, rear-drive sports coupe, intended to take on …

With a string of recent home-run vehicle introductions behind it, Nissan is about to attempt its toughest launch yet.  The 2004 Titan hits dealers this December, taking Nissan into full-size pickup truck territory.  How new is Nissan to the last Big-Three dominated market?  As the Titan was being shown to journalists for the first time, Nissan dealers across the country were scrambling to equip their service departments with vehicle lifts strong enough to hoist the big pickup trucks for oil changes.

Rather than trying to compete with the comprehensive, two-hundred model …

Nissan’s entry into the growing muscle war among compact cars is a relative newcomer to the game.  The Sentra SE-R doesn’t have the rally-bred cachet of the Subaru WRX or the Mitsubishi Lancer.  Heck, even the Ford Focus has been rally racing.  It hasn’t got the classic nameplate of the Mini Cooper, the giant-killer attitude of the upcoming Dodge Neon SRT-4 or even the next-big-thing versatility of Mazda’s Protege5.  All the Sentra SE-R has is a nameplate that harkens to a wonderful little hot-rod coupe that flourished in the early …

This is not a car that’s going to stir the hearts of enthusiasts, but it’ll get you around town nicely enough. At speed, its feeling of connection to the road is not unlike being in a blimp, right down to the drone from the engine.

This might just be the first SUV that could be called pretty.  Nissan’s all-new Murano enters a familiar market with a face that’s definitely something new.  It’s a banner year for sport-utility freshmen; Volkswagen, Porsche and Volvo are all fielding their first-ever SUVs in 2003, and the Honda Pilot joins the Murano and Toyota 4Runner in the all-new brigade.

There’s more here than just a pretty face, too.  Intended to compete in the growing field of on-road SUVs, the Murano rides on the same platform as the Nissan Altima.  Sweetening the …

Don’t look now, but your compact pickup truck is feeling a bit conflicted.  First you wanted more power, so you could tow and haul more.  Then you asked for four doors, just like the big crew cab pickup trucks have.  Then you wanted a full-size, six-foot bed.  All of a sudden, your mini-pickup isn’t so mini any more.  The 2002 Nissan Frontier is a great multi-tasker in crew cab, long-bed format…but it’s a lot bigger than it used to be.

It’s also a lot more interesting than it used to be.  …

The Nissan Altima has long been a decent car with a weird size.  The family sedan was smaller than comptetitors like the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry, but too large to compete directly against the Corolla and Civic.  The Altima’s only other “in-between” competition, the Ford Contour, bit the dust two yeas ago.

Luckily, the Altima’s precarious market position wasn’t overlooked during Nissan’s ongoing rejuvenation.  For 2002 the bread-and-butter sedan from Nissan is larger and sportier, and it’s finally ready to do battle with the big sellers from Honda, Toyota, Ford, …

It’s scary; entry-level cars are getting so nice that first-time buyers might start assuming they can’t afford them.  The best little cars don’t look or feel cheap any more, even if they are.  The 2000 Nissan Sentra is the latest economy car to get the high-quality treatment.  Completely redesigned for 2000, the Sentra shares a platform with some Japanese and European models, but the car itself is unique to North America.  It was designed at Nissan’s California design studio.  Looking like a smaller-scale Altima, the new Sentra is a small …

It’s hard to say what makes a car “about” one thing or another.  You just know.  Some cars are about being appliances, about getting from point A to point B.  Some are about style.  Some don’t know what they’re about at all. And some, like the 2000 Nissan Maxima SE, are about driving.

You can’t always tell just by looking, but there’s something in the way certain cars respond to the road that makes the simple act of driving a pleasure in itself.  With relatives like Nissan’s 300ZX, 240SX, and the …