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The Nissan Maxima features a chiseled, muscular body with pronounced character lines. It's aerodynamic and modern and yet architecturally Art Deco, like some Flash Gordon fantasy of yesterday's tomorrow.

This is especially true at the front end, where a rounded-rectangle texture fills in the twin nostrils in Nissan's signature grille, split by a dark chrome medallion at the center, with aerodynamically integrated headlight clusters wrapping over the top and around at the sides.

Big, round fender openings accented by flattened wheel lips pay homage to enormous alloy wheels: 18-inch, six-spoke units on the SE; 17-inch, seven-spoke on the SL. The relatively open wheel design shows off the black-painted brake calipers nicely.

The Nissan Maxima's rear roof slopes into the trunk lid flanked by buttress-like sail panels. Large triangular taillight clusters, like the headlights, wrap around to the sides of the car.

Maxima's bold design innovations include the Skyview roof, a glass panel running lengthwise over the front and rear seats.

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The interior of the Nissan Maxima is innovative and comfortable.

The seats in the Maxima SL look nice and feel supportive and luxurious at the same time: You dream of all-day interstate cruises across the West in seats like these. The seats in the SL are firm yet pillowy, wide without a lot of side bolstering.

The Maxima's steering wheel is familiar Nissan issue, functional but not beautiful. It tilts and telescopes, and for 2006 the redundant controls on the wheel are illuminated. In front of the driver are three small gauges set in their own pod, like those on a motorcycle.

We like many of the details of the Maxima's interior, specifically the light colors and the proximity of the switches and controls to the driver. However, the labels for the climate and audio systems are too small to be easily read, and the audio and trip computer seem to have more buttons than they should need. The display is hard to read in bright sunlight with polarized sunglasses.

We didn't care, either, for the large, flat splash of trim on the center stack, neither the titanium-colored plastic in the SE nor the faux wood on the SL. It seems like wasted space. Also, there's a lot of dashboard area that stretches way out to the leading edge of the windshield.

When seated in the back of a four-seat Nissan Maxima with the Elite Package, you get the feeling you're in the passenger seat of a two-seat sports car. With the narrow Skyview window above your head, you don't feel like you've been relegated to the kid seats while the adults up front enjoy all the luxuries. The Skyview window does not open, but Nissan says it found a lot of people rarely open their sunroofs. We're among them. For those who prefer it, a conventional sunroof over the front seats is available.

Nissan offers a choice of XM or Sirius satellite radio, both factory-installed for 2006. Satellite radio can be great companion on long trips, delivering CD-quality sound nearly everywhere. Not having to change stations on a cross-country trip has distinct advantages. Being news hounds, we enjoy being able to keep up on current events with the 24-hour TV news stations, such as CNN or Fox News. Finding stations is easy with RDS (radio data system), which clearly identifies programming on the radio's display.

Three cargo nets are provided in the trunk and work better than most for holding down a load of groceries.