Art in motion

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CURVY COUPE: Black isn’t its best colour, but Altima’s curves are sexier than the Accord, and rear hints at exotic European metal. Rear three-quarters is the best view though, as front could be better.

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MANGA STYLE: The Accord is definitely more Japanese in looks, and it’s best feature is its Samurai face mask style front. Sadly, from this angle it looks more like a Hyundai Coupe.

Shahzad Sheikh pits style against substance with the Accord and Altima coupes.

Deciding to buy a coupe version of any car should really be dismissed out of hand as foolish logic. You miss out on the convenience of a couple of extra portals, end up with less cabin space, and yet still not quite experience a proper sports car drive.

Plus, you invariably end up paying more for the pleasure of having less. On the other hand, saloons are what your dad drives.

So what is a coupe really all about? It's about having something that looks relatively sporty, but not having to live with a compromised two-seater with hardcore racing DNA that requires you to be at nine-tenths on every drive.

It's all about arriving in style and leaving an impression. For some, it implies maturity beyond the boy-racer brigade, and the sort of chic not found in four-door conveyances (unless you are driving a Maserati Quattroporte or Mercedes CLS, of course).

The world car market is seeing something of a coupe comeback, stemming the tidal wave of hot hatches and sports saloons, to reclaim their rightful place in the showroom windows, acting as lures to pull patrons through the doors and boost sales.

And, as if on cue, two new coupes - both from the Land of the Rising Sun - pop up on the radar as prime protagonists in this far from dead segment.

At first glance these could be twins separated at birth: similar dimensions, engine sizes, horsepower, performance and spec - they both even have names beginning with the same letter.

However the Honda Accord is an old hand at the coupe game and this latest model is the sixth iteration, whilst this is the first ever Nissan Altima Coupe. So we have experience versus ambition; establishment versus the upstart.

Immediately the Nissan plays its trump card and upstages the Honda. It's simply the better looking car. Far more dramatic, the swoopy profile, voluptuous front, and provocatively raised rear lend it the presence of more exotic machinery.

Unfortunately the black of the test car featured on these pages is the least flattering colour for the Altima coupe, but trust me, the sloping rear deck sitting atop flat-shoulder rear haunches could be reminiscent of Volvo or Zagato - take your pick.

Whilst the hint of 350Z in the side windows and the forward-thrusting bonnet line do it no harm.

It's just a shame that the unnecessary chrome highlights under the grille look like Hercule Poirot's immaculate moustache and the bulky headlights seem to be sliding off the front of the car.

Honda's coupe interpretation is more conventional, but still delightfully different to the poorly resolved saloon's styling.

It sits well on the tarmac, squat and imposing, and from the front is rather like a Samurai face mask with its more angular headlight and grille treatment.

At 18-inches it has the biggest wheels ever found on an Accord, but they could be a bit wider to fill out the wheelarches. It's handsome and distinctive, particularly in the Belize Blue Pearl of the test car, but it would never be seen pole-dancing - if cars did that sort of thing...

So it doesn't make your knees go weak, but all's not lost, because inside things swing back the Honda's way. The array of centre-console switch gear will perplex newcomers, but it's an inviting, beautifully-trimmed, well laid-out cockpit, with sporty nuances such as the mesh in one of the steering wheel spokes.

The Altima is business-like inside, which of course means it's plain-Jane dull, with everything where it should be and nothing to entice or excite.

It doesn't even have the 350Z-style steering wheel that most other Nissans do these days.

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