The Nissan Teana is a front wheel drive, mid-size car, introduced by Nissan in 2003. The Teana shares a platform with the North American Nissan Maxima and Nissan Altima. The Teana is a large sedan - essentially a competitor for the Toyota Avalon.
The car has some quirky styling, which combines the side-window design from the Infiniti M35/M45 with a Maxima-like front fascia. The rear end mimics the new 5- and 7-Series BMW's. Powering the Teana is either 2.3 or 3.5 liter engine, which matches to the automatic transmission. Trim levels available are 230JK, 230JM, 230JS, and 350JS. The engine is a V6, DOHC, front engine FWD. It has 24 valves, with 4 valves per cylinder. The car gives a fuel economy of 20 mpg in the city and 29 mpg on the highway. The engine is rated at 265hp @ 6000 rpm, with a torque of 255 lb-ft @ 4800 rpm.
The Teana is only available in right-hand drive for the Japanese market, and its interior is an old-fashioned design that has some older Buick overtones. For the U.S. markets, the prototype Teana has been changed to Left Hand Drive. Also, its dashboard has been redesigned to resemble the current models in Nissan's U.S. lineup. Nissan did some extensive repackaging of the interior to left-hand drive, in order to sell the car in the U.S. Since Toyota adopted a similar strategy with its Avalon, Nissan is attempting a similar attack - adapting the up-market Infiniti platform to get a share of the large, luxury-cruiser market.
