Boston.com's view

You can look at individual car companies the way you might examine an onion: peeling each apart, layer by layer.

General Motors, for example, has long been a hard bulb to dissect because its divisions – Buick, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac, for instance – often competed against one another with different models that were, in truth, very similar cars. Pulling off one layer of that onion often ripped into others. GM is working to fix this problem.

Ford Motor Co., analysts say, got into its recent troubles in part because one of its layers – light trucks and SUVs – got too thick for the good of the rest of the onion.

Toyota, on the other hand, has done a good job of precisely defining each layer – five SUVs that don’t overlap, a top-selling, affordable sedan in the Camry, a low-luxury sedan in the Avalon, and even a fine V-8 truck in the Tundra.

Nissan was a company so close to death 18 months ago that its dissection was more like trying to take apart a bad apple layer by layer.

No more of that for Nissan. Witness the Xterra, an affordable, durable, utilitarian SUV that picked a precise market – adventurous youth – and zeroed in like a laser. Coming soon will be the new Z car, a 280-plus horsepower rebirth of the company’s beloved sports car at an eyecatching price of $26,000-$29,000.

In between these successes – and the applauded redesign/reengineering of the Maxima sedan – comes the new Altima, going just a bit upscale, targeting the popular Camry and Honda Accord, and arriving larger than either.

The new Altima is designed to attract those Nissan feared might be lost to smaller SUVs, station wagons, and crossover vehicles, people for whom a small sedan was just not large enough anymore.

This Altima arrives with a wheelbase more than seven inches longer than in the past, longer overall by almost six inches, and sitting two inches taller. It comes with a range of 15-, 16-, and 17-inch wheels, and with a choice of two engines, a 2.5-liter, four-cylinder that produces 175 horsepower, and a 3.5-liter V-6 that delivers 240 horsepower. The 3.5 comes as the 3.5L model, while the smaller engine comes in the 2.5, 2.5S, and 2.5SL (as tested) models. Transmission options include a four-speed automatic and a five-speed manual (again, as tested).

I loved Nissan’s 220 horsepower plant that came in earlier Maximas, and can’t wait to try the new 3.5 with 240 horses.

As for looks, there’s been an edgy redesign that looks as if Nissan crossed a Chrysler 300M with a Volkswagen Passat.

There’s the cab forward look of Chrysler, with the nose shoveled down, big windshield, and steeply sloping roof. It gets VW-ish at the C pillar, where the roof drops abruptly to a short trunk and flat rear end. It’s a sporty-looking sedan.

And it has a sporty feel.

At first, it seemed light upfront, the steering feathery. Then, it occurred to me that that feeling of light steering came because the rest of the car was so rigid, in a go od way.

The 2.5-liter engine doesn’t send the Altima rocketing ahead from a stop, but once it is pushed above 3,200 rpms, it provides a solid surge, good for passing or cruising. And it delivers enough torque steer in its milder form that I worry about big torque steer in the 3.5. The five-speed manual is fairly stiff as it clicks through the gears, though certainly not European in its precision.

Its stiff construction – coupled with fully independent suspension – let me throw the car into corners, or passing lanes, with a flat, solid sense of travel. Body roll was minimal and, in passing, it was possible to snap the car back into the right lane with no sense of wiggle.

The new suspension includes struts, coil springs, and antiroll bars up front and, in the rear, a multilink system supported by coil springs and antiroll bars.

At first glance, the interior looks sporty and luxurious. It gets halfway there.

Th three-pod instrument cluster has a nice retro look, an the orange backlighting give it a sporty edge. The audio/climate cluster at center dash features audio up top, climate below, and all are easily reachable, understandable, and useable – no small feat in a day when complexity and tiny buttons often overwhelm the user.

The half that comes up lacking is the interior quality, where the leather looks and feels like plastic, and the interior trim feels cheap.

This is an important car for Nissan as it tries to push both the Altima and Maxima upscale just a bit. In the case of the Altima, it gets most of the way there.

2002 Nissan Altima 2.5 SL

Base price: $21,899

Price as tested: $24,564

Horsepower: 175

Torque: 181 lb.-ft.

Wheelbase: 110.2 inches

Overall length: 191.5 inches

Width: 70.4 inches

Height: 57.8 inches

Curb weight: 3,028 lbs.

Seating: 5 passengers

Fuel economy: 25.8 miles per gallon

SOURCE: Nissan North America; fuel economy from Globe testing.

Nice touch

I loved the chopped rear deck because of the sporty tension it gives the car’s appearance — even as Nissan somehow manages to maintain decent trunk space.

Annoyance

The front seats could be firmer and, in a sporty sedan, the absence of firm side bolsters is a bad omission. Once you get into the mid-$20,000 range, interior quality needs to be finer. Volkswagen does a great job in this range. Other companies should be able to do the same.