2009 Nissan Maxima

Courtesy of its curvaceously fluid lines, the styling of the 2009 Nissan Maxima can actually be called voluptuous. Long, lean, and gracefully agile, if the road is a dance floor, the 2009 Nissan Maxima is the Beyonce of sport sedans. Like that long-legged siren, the new Maxima has both the voice and the moves to accelerate your respiration and put you on a first name basis with perspiration.

It’s been 20 years since Nissan saw fit to adorn a Maxima with a 4DSC label, and in most respects it absolutely deserves to wear it. There is one point of debate, but we’ll get to that later. Those of you who don’t remember when M.C. Hammer was a worldwide phenomenon, might not recall what the initials 4DSC refer to. Back in 1989, Nissan called their top sedan a four door sports car. The idea was to get buyers to look at the Maxima in the same light they’d view, say a 5-Series BMW. And while there have been several interesting iterations of Nissan’s flagship sedan since 1989, this is the first one in a while to move us the way this current model does.

The key components of any good sporting automobile are the engine, chassis, brakes and steering. All of these must deliver in a highly visceral fashion. When combined, they should impart a driving experience that connects you to the car in a way that makes you feel thoroughly engaged in the driving experience.

In the engine department, Nissan has a big head start, thanks to its marvelous V6 engine. The powerplant is so good we’re starting to run out of synonyms for the word “smooth” to use to describe it. Whipped cream, chocolate mousse, Beyonce’s voice –– take your pick. Nissan’s VQ35 engine spins out power both freely and fluidly, making an absolutely gorgeous sound while doing so. A 3.5-liter iteration of the engine is applied to 2009 Maxima models and is tuned to produce 290 horsepower and 261 foot-pounds of torque. With all that power going to ground through the front wheels, torque steer can sometimes be a problem for many manufacturers. However, in our often quite spirited drives of the Nissan Maxima, we were never bothered by torque steer at all.

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