Nissan Teana is First Produced

The Nissan Teana is a Mid-size car produced by Nissan of Japan, introduced in 2003. It is exported as the Nissan Maxima and Nissan Cefiro to certain markets, not to be confused with the Nissan Maxima sold in North America (with which it shares its platform). It shares a platform with the North American Maxima and Nissan Altima, as well as the Japanese market Presage.

The Teana was first introduced in late 2003 to the Japanese Domestic Market. It was introduced a month later to other Asian markets like Singapore. In 2004, the car arrived on European shores. Powering the Teana was either a 1998cc, 2349cc or 3498cc engine which matched to the automatic transmission. Trim levels were 200JK, 230JK, 230JM and 350JM. The car was based on the Nissan FF-L platform. In mid-2005, the Teana received new headlights and tailights, chrome trimming on the bumpers, enlarged foglights, front legrests and newly-designed gauges. The car was also shortened slightly, and the clear rear turn signals were replaced by amber ones. XTronic CVT was also mated to all the engines.

In the People's Republic of China, the Teana was manufactured by the Dongfeng Motor Company, a joint venture with Nissan. In the neighbouring country of Pakistan, the Teana was known as the Cefiro and was assembled in Karachi. In Taiwan it is manufactured by Yulon Motor. Additionally, it is sold in India, Russia, Ukraine as well as in New Zealand and Australia where it competes with the locally produced Mitsubishi 380 and Toyota Aurion under the Maxima badge. The first generation Teana was also assembled in Thailand for sale in the ASEAN market, competing with similar D-segment cars such as the Honda Accord and the Toyota Camry.

The Renault Samsung Motors SM7 of South Korea is built on the Teana platform. In January 2005, Renault Samsung announced a lower-specification version of the Teana which it will sell as the New SM5.

In some countries, the 200JK was not sold. Instead, the 230JK, basically a 230JM without the VQ23DE engine was sold. In Australia, the car was sold in ST-L, Ti and Ti-L guises, but the Ti-L model was dropped after the facelift in 2005.

Dongfeng released 1/43 and 1/18 scale models on the market to promote the car during its launch in China .

In 2008, Nissan discontinued production of the J31.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Teana