Gotta-have-it styling at a compelling price

Nissan has cleverly taken its very successful Altima sedan and nipped and tucked it to produce a gor-geous coupe variant. The Altima coupe doesn’t try tohide its ancestral connection to the sedan, but targetsa different customer.

The coupe’s styling is rather simplistic, almostSpartan. The seductive shaping of the sheet metalmakes chrome and add-on baubles superfluous. Theinterior is tasteful and functional, but it’s not highlyadorned or ornate.

The base coupe is equipped with cloth bucketseats, a 2.5 liter 4-cylinder engine and a six-speed manual transmission with 175 horsepower and dualexhaust. The famous 3.5-liter V6 has 270 horse-power with either the same manual transmission orNissan’s new CVT transmission, a gearless unit thatdelivers a continuous flow of power without tradi-tional shifting.

With the Altima coupe, you get a lot of good-looking car for not too much money. Mileage: 23 mpg city/32 mpg highway Base MSRP: $20,500 Warranty: three years/36,000 miles