NEW YORK MOTOR SHOW: Nissan confirms Maxima

Nissan has released the first official photos of its next-generation Maxima and confirmed it will make its world debut at the New York motor show in April.

The new Maxima made a surprise cameo appearance in Nissan's 90-second 'With Dad' Super Bowl TVC on Sunday, and could eventually be sold in Australia.

Nissan's mid-size Altima sedan effectively replaced the Maxima as the Japanese brand's largest passenger sedan model here in 2013, but has failed to make a sales impact.

Last year the Altima, which forms the basis of Nissan's V8 Supercars campaign, attracted less than 1800 Australian buyers – less than the Toyota Camry, Mazda6, Volkswagen Passat, Ford Mondeo, Hyundai i40, Volkswagen Jetta and Skoda Octavia.

The Altima has so far also proven less popular than the old Maxima, sales of which peaked at 1923 in 2011 before it was discontinued in September last year for the first time since 1990. And it will face more competition this year from facelifted Mazda6 and Camry models, plus the all-new Liberty, Mondeo and Passat.

Officially, Nissan Australia says it has no plans to introduce the new Maxima to local showrooms.

However, it continues to study all models available to it globally and, in an interview with motoring.com.au last year, managing director Richard Emery did not rule out the possibility of the next Maxima replacing the Altima at some point, depending on sales of the Altima and availability of the new Maxima.

"I think there is a place for Maxima. [But] Is there a place for two cars? I don’t know," he said.

"As that large car segment becomes smaller it is nowhere near as sophisticated as the SUV market where you can justify having Juke, QASHQAI, X-TRAIL, Pathfinder. They all can find their space.

“As the large car-medium car segment gets smaller you can’t have that much room to move with different model line-ups, I would have thought.

“So that might come down to timing; as to when the Maxima is available, if it is available and what it looks like versus what Altima is up to at the time.”

No details have been revealed about the 2016 Maxima, which is expected on sale in the US later this year and is a global model due to be rolled out in more than 100 left- and right-hand drive markets.

As expected, however, it takes a number of styling cues from the Sport Sedan concept revealed at last year's Detroit show, including "V-motion" front-end and "floating" roof designs.

Both design features also appear on Nissan's new Murano, which is due on sale this year and shares its front/all-wheel drive platform with the new Maxima.

Both models will therefore share 2.5-litre four-cylinder and 3.5-litre V6 petrol engines mated to an Xtronic CVT, with a petrol-electric hybrid system also on the cards.