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Nissan was in trouble. Sales tanked. Profits vanished. Debts rose. Vultures circled. Then came Renault SA, a French automaker, which earlier this year agreed to buy 36.8 percent of Nissan for $5.4 billion. It was a heroic gesture, similar to a gentleman officer coming onto a factory floor to swoop up a hapless lover. But the business world laughed.

Renault, beset by lackluster products and profits and bereft of any meaningful sales in the lucrative North American market, was in trouble itself. Its alliance with Nissan Motor Co. seemed a marriage made in hell.

But there’s evidence that the relationship will work. Success is in the latest group of Nissan products, which the Japanese automaker offered Renault as dowry.

First came the 2000 Nissan Xterra, an impressive, sensible compact sport-utility vehicle that is bound to give the competition fits. Now comes the 2000 Maxima, a mid-size “affordable luxury” sedan that probably will cause trouble for American car companies, and could steal sales from Japanese rivals as well.

There are three versions of the new Maxima–the base GXE, the mid-level SE and the more-posh-than-thou GLE. I drove the 2000 Maxima SE.

The car shows what can happen when Nissan’s traditionally conservative leaders loosen up and let their designers design.

Nissan never had a problem with engineering. Its excellent 3-liter V-6 engine, which makes a freshened reappearance in the new Maxima, is proof of that.

Nissan’s problem was product definition. The company tried to please by not offending, by passionately embracing the vanilla middle, and it got clobbered in the process.

The new Maxima does not repeat that mistake. Nissan design chief Jerry Hirshberg, exterior designer Doug Wilson and interior designer Alfonso Albaisa had a good time putting this one together.

Kudos to Wilson for penning one of the most attractive rear ends given to any sedan. The scalloped back lights sort of stand out from the car, floating, simultaneously appearing to be attached and unattached to the Maxima’s backside, which curves prettily into the rear bumpers. Eyes automatically follow the back lights, which is good for product recognition and even better for safety.

Albaisa gets high marks for finding beauty in functional simplicity, as evidenced by his arrangement of the new Maxima’s center console, which contains cooling, heating and audio system controls; a clock; a well-placed automatic shift lever; and driver-reachable storage areas. Similar consoles in some comparable cars are confusing busy boxes. This one is clearly marked and angled for optimum ease of use.

Anyone who has driven previous Maximas knows that the cars are road demons in clerical dress. The new Maxima runs hard and well, too–but with more horsepower. It just does it in more revealing clothes.

Renault must feel quite happy about all of this. Through Nissan, it now has something to sell in North America, and possibly something better to offer i n Europe as well.

2000 Nissan Maxima SE

Complaints: More work needed on the optional four-speed automatic transmission installed in the tested Maxima SE sedan. The transmission in the pre-production test car tended to downshift during acceleration. Here’s hoping that Nissan cleared up the problem in the regular production run.

Praise: Distinctive styling. Excellent overall build quality. Overall excellent highway performance. Practical, comfortable and priced to beat the competition.

Head-turning quotient: Yo, Maxima got butt. Ain’t no other way to say it.

Ride, acceleration and handling: Aces for ride and handling. Very good acceleration with a few demerits for downshifting in the test car. Excellent braking. Standard brakes include power four-wheel discs with anti-locks at all corners.

Capacities: Comfortably seats five adults. Trunk holds 15.1 cubic feet of cargo. Fuel tank carries 18.5 gallons of recommended premium unleaded.

Drivetrain: Nissan’s 3-liter, double-overhead-cam, 24-valve V-6 designed to produce 222 horsepower (32 hp more than previous version) at 6,400 rpm and 217 pound-feet of torque at 4,000 rpm. A five-speed manual transmission is standard on the GXE and SE. An automatic is optional on those models. The GLE gets a standard four-speed automatic.

Mileage: About 25 miles per gallon in city/highway driving. Estimated 449-mile range on usable volume of fuel.

Safety: Optional side-impact air bags. Also, the sedan’s side structures are designed to bend away from passenger torsos in side crashes.

Sound system: Six-speaker, 120-watt AM-FM radio, cassette and CD player. Sound by Dolby. Very good.

Price: The 2000 Maxima goes on sale this summer. The introductory base price on the Maxima SE will be $24,144. Estimated dealer invoice on that model is $21,600. Estimated price as tested works out to $24,664, including a $520 destination charge. Note: These prices are preliminary.

Purse-strings note: Very competitive. Excellent value. Compare with 2000 Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Chevrolet Impala, Ford Taurus/Mercury Sable, Oldsmobile Intrigue.