Yahoo Autos The 1999 Nissan Maxima Is the Sports Sedan Non-Gearheads Forgot
This 1999 Nissan Maxima doesn't have a particularly striking design, especially in this shade of extremely 1990s silver-beige. It's a slightly generic looking four-door. But what's the substance beneath its skin? Our good buds at Regular Car Reviews make the convincing case that this was, and is, a true sports sedan-one that you probably forgot about.
The one Mr. Regular drove, a somewhat-rare five-speed manual example, is a surprisingly enjoyable car. It's easy for non-gearheads to miscast the Maxima as a Toyota Avalon rival, but this generation of Maxima was relatively lightweight, with a 3.0-liter V6 that was a joy to rev.
Enthusiasts know this, of course, and anyone who was lucky enough to snag a stick-shift V6 Maxima back in the day probably misses it terribly now. But Nissan's "four-door sports car" never had European cachet, and to the uninitiated, it seemed like just another affordable Japanese four-door.
That's good news for us, because it means non-car-nut dullards won't be competing with us to find a nice, clean '90s Maxima. Just hope you can find one with a stick.
