GLOBAL INTRIGUE; Nissan hopes the '07 Sentra puts a dent in Civic and Corolla control of small-car market.(News)

Byline: WES RAYNAL

The car you see on this page is not the next-generation Saturn Ion, nor is it some kind of shrunken version of the next-generation Chrysler Sebring. Though it looks like a combination of the two, it is in fact the 2007 Nissan Sentra, a car that Nissan hopes will crack the combination to small-car domination by Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla.

Nissan's new Sentra is truly a global effort: Nissan and Renault jointly developed the platform and powertrain in Japan, the exterior and interior design work was done at Nissan's design studio in San Diego, with the Nissan tech center outside Detroit pitching in on structural development.

To make room for the smaller Versa in Nissan's portfolio, the Sentra has grown. It is three inches wider and 2.3 inches longer than the car it replaces. It rides on what Nissan and Renault call the Global C platform, also used underneath the Renault Megane, as well as Nissan's home-market Lafesta and Serena minivans. The chassis uses an independent strut front suspension and a torsion-beam rear suspension.

In a brief drive in Northern California, we found the Sentra to be a nice-riding little scooter, with controlled body motions and not too much jarring from the suspension into the cockpit over road imperfections. Road bumps in that warm climate are nothing like the Versa-sized potholes in cold-weather ...