Out spypixmen have spotted this test mule in the USA, and it appears to be a heavily camouflaged 2016 Nissan Altima facelift. The US-market Nissan Altima is known in our part of the world as the Nissan Teana, and like in Malaysia, the three-year old Altima takes on the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord (facelift also around the corner) and Hyundai Sonata in the fiercely contested “midsize” market there.
Referring to the mid-life facelift of the US-market 2015 Toyota Camry, Nissan North America product planning VP Pierre Loing said earlier this year: “Camry did something very huge. I believe they did that probably because they thought the car was not where they wanted it to be. I’m not sure we’re going to go to that extent. But we’re going to do something significant for the Altima for the mid-cycle.”
That’s confirmed by today’s spyshots. The Altima, which looks identical to our Teana, is set to get a new grille – possibly a “V-Motion” item as seen on bigger brother Maxima and the Murano SUV to replace the current triple horizontal bars.
The lower bumper design is also fresh, obvious from the different sizes of the fog lamp housings and central vent, which is now underlined by another strip of vents on the lip. This mule’s rear end is heavily taped up and there’s nothing much we can take note of. The end result could be a bolder looking sedan, taking (a small step) after the striking new Nissan Maxima.
The L33 Nissan Teana, launched here in June 2014, is still very much a fresh and competitive product, and this round of changes should be pretty far down the line, if it is coming.
