Nissan unveiled its all-new 2009 Maxima at this year’s New York Auto Show, and the first batch of the new four-door sports cars have begun rolling off the production floor at the automaker’s Smyrna, Tennessee production plant.
The 2009 model represents the seventh-generation Maxima and promises to be the best iteration to date. The Maxima is built on Nissan’s D platform, which is said to improve handling and virtually eliminate torque steer associated with high-horsepower front-wheel drive cars — a good thing considering the ’09 Maxima has 290 ponies on tap.
Nissan launched the Maxima in the U.S. in 1981 and claims that 80 percent of those vehicles are still on the road today. According to Just-Auto, Nissan plans to ship about 3,600 Maximas in the fiscal year 2008, with sales beginning later this year.
