I was reading around and found that there was a concept car that led to - or greatly influenced the redesign of the 3rd generation maxima. This car was debuted in 1988 under the name "ARC-X" and won a major design award in The Torino/Piemonte auto show. Apparently this was a major turning point as heads started to turn toward nissan as an ingenuitive company in aesthetics.
problem is, i've searched all day and can't find a picture of the arc-x...
has anyone seen it? have a pic?
-M

 

 

Damn. Clear corners!

 

dam, I can see the 3rd gens cabin in all that muck.
and if that concept was from 88, it was probably based on the already designed 3rd gen.

 

that is awesome, way ahead of its time... thanks for posting that.
i think it was only debuted in 88, probably was in design around the same time the 3rd gen was being developed
no door handles!
-M

 

wow...awesome find. the tailight sections hints of the 3rd gen as well. that interior is horrid!!! so glad they released the design they did and not that. still interesting though!!

 

Thats really interesting! You can definately see styling cues that are in the 3rd gen, especially in the back end like DA-MAX said. Too bad that they didnt use the frameless doors like on that car.

The seats sure do look comfy though!

 

be glad they didn't, my legacy had that design and the passenger side always howled, besides if a reg goes out on that design, you can't hold the window up with out opening the door panel

 

i guess that's how some 3rd gens have that star trek steering wheel

 

whoa! that's one ugly son of b!tch !!!
i see some styling influences in it but the a31 cefiro resembles a 3rd gen more than an arc x

 

It's better looking than the Big Bird 3-gen in the General section

 

you gotta link?

 

Here you go, they closed it down after a few of us started ragging on it really bad.

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=333806

 

eww...that yellow max is fugly!

 

this site is saying the ARC-X was basically a pre-Q45 http://zccw.org/ZHistory/Z32_part1.htm