2004 Nissan Maxima 3.5 SE vs Audi A4 3.0 quattro

Imagine how awful life must've been in 1903. If you wanted to watch your favorite TV program, first you had to invent the television. Fast food was available only if you could run faster than it could. And when it came to finding an entertaining ride, things were really grim. In 1903, the typical sport sedan wore a feed bag and was almost impossible to control near a glue factory.

Now look at us. Just one century later, a mere heart-flutter compared with the eons it took for man to master fire and make sense of "Eraserhead," we've got sport sedans positively breathtaking in their performance, comfort, and electronic wizardry. Case in point: Nissan's new 2004 Maxima 3.5 SE sedan.

A car this dramatic is almost unexpected. The Maxima has been a strong-selling V-6 import sport sedan in the United States for nearly 20 years--Nissan could easily have been forgiven for not wanting to mess with a good thing. But the '04 Maxima, to be on sale about the time you read this, is radically new. It's a true 21st-century automobile--a technology-packed sport sedan built on Nissan's contemporary FF-L platform (shared with the Altima) with a show-car style interior, all wrapped in a daringly futuristic body. Love the look or loathe it (and there are people in both camps), you have to applaud Nissan for refusing to join the safe-styling flock.

The Maxima 3.5 SE isn't timid leaving stoplights, either. The 24-valve, 3.5-liter V-6 engine is mostly carried over from the '03 model year, but it's been massaged with revised intake and exhaust tracts to produce 265 horsepower--a 10-horse increase. As before, the engine in SE models can be mated to an optional six-speed manual transmission (a five-speed automatic with manual shift mode is standard). Maxima prices hadn't yet finalized as we went to press, but we expect a fully equipped six-speed SE to sticker for about $34,000.

Hmmmm. That price, along with the Maxima SE's combo of four doors, taut suspension, twin-cam V-6 propulsion, and six-speed manual shifting, reminded us of one of our favorite similarly configured sport sedans: the Audi A4 3.0.