Even as Toyota kept the Cressida a rear-wheel-drive first cousin to the sporty Supra (sales of that car continued here well into the 1990s), Nissan moved the formerly-Z-based Maxima to a front-wheel-drive platform for the 1985 model year. The new, roomier Maxima continued to be loaded with futuristic electronic gadgetry and a Z-Car engine, and sales of the wagon version continued all the way through the 1988 model year. Here’s a well-traveled ’86 Maxima wagon in a Denver-area car graveyard.
It’s flipped sideways here, but this is just about the same VG30 V6 that buyers of the 300ZX got in 1986 (152 horsepower in the Maxima, 160 in the 300ZX).
Americans hadn’t yet fallen completely out of love with manual transmissions by 1986, but most of these cars got two-pedal setups over here. 5-speed 1985-1988 Maximas do exist, though.
If you want to find 1980s cars with trip-to-the-moon-and-back odometer readings, you’ll need to look at Mercedes-Benz diesels. This Maxima made it to the moon and some of the way back during its 35 years on the road.
The Colorado climate laughs at cloth interiors, even nice Japanese ones.
When translating from compact Japanese kanji characters to bulky English words in the 1980s, funny typography could ensue. I’ve got a big collection of these “SECU-RITY” indicator lights, and of course I grabbed this one. This car has the talking voice-alert system that made upscale Datsuns legendary a few years earlier, but it operates via solid-state digital gear rather than the amazing tiny-phonograph-based rig used in earlier Maximas.
There’s rust in the usual spots, not as bad as what you’d see in Illinois or Vermont but enough to kill whatever modicum of value a faded high-mile wagon might have had.
In Japan, the V6 Bluebird was incredibly suave.
In Australia, the Bluebird Wagon got this strange video-game-themed clearance-sale pitch.
Today’s automotive world is filled with compromise. To get luxury and performance, you have to sacrifice value. Nissan disagrees!
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They drove the hell out of that thing.
@Murilee, I always enjoy your writeups – thanks.
Second picture: When we are all driving EV’s, will anyone miss vacuum hoses? [Or will future regulations result in a maze of *something* attached to the drive motors?]
That Australian ad with Paul Newman is a good argument for taking a Tesla-style approach to advertising (i.e., do little to none).
When this car was new, I was a young punk working at a Quick-Lube type place. The oil filter on this car is on the back of the engine, under the exhaust manifold, and is surrounded by heater hoses and A/C lines. It was impossible to get from below, and everyone burned their forearms on the exhaust.
Eventually, I did so many of these that I figured out a way to do the job painlessly. But it took a lot of burns to get there.
…..”for taking a Tesla-style approach to advertising (i.e., do little to none).” Actually, that was H. Ford during the Model T production run. Ford relied on word of mouth only.
The buyers of Teslas amaze me. For a group of people that used to buy Toyotas and Hondas for the quality leaps above GM, now they buy Teslas to virtue signal their one-up(wo)manship of environmental look at me-ism. Teslas are a religion, their quality is abysmal, their electronics are Mercedes grade junk and their build quality is soviet proud.
I would rather go to NAPA and buy a roll ov vac. line and use a diagram to replace rather than deal with batteries and 100’s of connection points exposed to vibrations, heat / cold cycles and road grime.
Teslas are the Apple iPhone of the automotive industry, but without the iPhone’s build quality.
Is that a combination keypad to unlock the car? I’ve never seen one outside of a Fomoco product. (It’s still the best feature not widely adopted. Makes it easy to leave your keys/valuables inside the car at the beach)
It sure is.
“the best feature not widely adopted”
This would make a superb QOTD.
I had an 86 sedan in two tone brown like this. I would leave my keys under the seat and lock the car with the keypad. One of my favorite vehicles ever and the V6 was great at the time.
There was the sedan version of this Maxima as a fleet vehicle at a company I was employed by in the 80’s. While it was a nice ride with nice accoutrements the interior volume was roughly equal to a Sentra.
A Toyota Cressida packed in more value with a tad more room and the smooth well regarded I-6 and rear wheel drive.
They also had a loaded Cimarron with the 2.8 mpi and the F-41 handling package. It wasn’t a bad ride but hardly worthy of the Cadillac brand.
It was the ultimate F yuppies machine. Just another line Nissan screwed up. But which one didn’t they?