JEDDAH, 23 June 2004 — The all-new 2005 Altima, which represents the “most technologically advanced Nissan midsize sedan,” was unveiled at a ceremony organized by Alhamrani United Co. at Jeddah Hilton on Monday night.
“This is the newest addition to Nissan’s sedan lineup of Maxima and Sunny, which comes to the region with unique design, exceptional performance and contemporary interior, all mounted with state-of-the-art safety measures,” Takeshi Nakajima, regional director, Nissan Middle East FZE, said.
Nissan’s designers and engineers have focused on three key areas — invigorating design, increased roominess and powerful performance.
“Using a whole new platform and new attitude — ‘one that decreed that midsize sedans no longer have to be standard and boring’ — we’ve created a vehicle that we believe sets a new standard in its class,” Nakajima said.
The car comes with a 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine and a powerful 3.5-liter V6 engine. “Both engines generate a performance that makes the new Altima the most competitive model in the segment,” he said.
The totally new Altima, which is aimed to “fully exceed the needs of the class of segment that it belongs to,” has been the recipient of the “car of the year” award in the United States and Canada. Its 3.5-liter V6 engine is part of the VQ series, which is recognized as one of the “10 best engines” by Ward’s Auto world magazine for nine consecutive years.
Both the standard 5-speed manual and available 4-speed electronically controlled automatic transmissions have been reinforced to handle the power output of the 3.5-liter V6 engine. Automatic transmission-equipped V6 Altima cars also offer an advanced traction control system.
The car features many standard safety aspects, including dual-stage supplemental air bags that sense seatbelt use and collision severity, front seatbelts with pretension and load limiters, and a child seat anchor and tether system. Nissan is introducing nine other new models in the next 15 months.
The Altima sedan built for the Middle East varies somewhat from what is offered in North America.
There are about 400 parts in the GCC Altima that vary from the sedan’s North American version.
