The poor Nissan Altima has a bad rap it doesn’t really deserve. You’ve almost certainly heard of Big Altima Energy before. Cars exhibiting BAE might be doing over 100 mph on at least one donut spare, and its body might be missing a panel or two – or, if complete, those panels might be a few different hues. Of course, this is just a stereotype. Yet, here’s a story involving a Nissan Altima that’s even crazier than that.
Mark Tucker’s Shitbox Showdown between a 2004 Toyota Solara and a 2009 Nissan Altima coupe prompted a truly wild story in the commentsm as Nsane In The MembraNe came in with a wild tale of a very different kind of BAE:
I’ve actually ridden in one of these Altima coupes, and it’s quite the story. I was in NYC back in 2010/11 to celebrate New Year’s Eve with one of my friends I was in college with at the time. Everyone assumed we were dating but it was completely platonic, she was kind of like a little sister to me and we liked partying together.
Anyway little did I know she was from a mob family. Like…an actual mob family, I could identify the New York syndicate most of her family was affiliated with but I’d rather not. Unfortunately she got too drunk on NYE because she decided to slam rum while on antibiotics. We wound up getting separated downtown, which was as much of a nightmare you’d think it is.
Her phone died and I eventually gave up trying to find her and took the train back to her mom’s house. I was picked up by her uncle, who was a Robert De Niro doppelgänger and the vibe he gave off was that of an enforcer. Anyway he dropped me off at a hotel, told me he’d kill me if she didn’t show up by morning, and sped off.
Fortunately she found her way home. Anyway I got a very stern talking to the next day (they just refused to believe we weren’t dating) from her uncle who was walking around the house with firearms. After that I was on the verge of a panic attack, so my friend called her friend to pick us up and take us to their weed dealer so I could smoke up to try to calm my nerves. Her friend showed up in…you guessed it! An Altima coupe.
Anyway we weren’t friends for much longer. One of my buddies eventually dated her and came back so scarred from his New York visit that he wouldn’t talk about it for years. She’s currently incarcerated for embezzling tens of thousands of dollars from one of the family businesses that I assume was for money laundering. I had to have a conversation with an FBI agent about that arrest because she thought it was clever to put me down as her therapist.
It’s best to avoid the mob at all costs. Hollywood glamorizes it but these are literally the worst people you’ll ever encounter. I still voted for the Altima because it secured me weed, her friend was cool and attractive, and we got to listen to Modest Mouse during the drive.
You’ll find a lot of misinformation on TikTok, from how to survive plane crashes to how hurricanes work. Matt wrote about a dubious claim that a “No Touch” law for smartphones in cars went into effect in most of the country on June 5. I’m with Seattle-Nerd:
We really really gotta figure out how to stop people taking as gospel some rando yapping at a cell phone camera. Too many people take something @random-jabroni123456789 as a reliable source when he’s just some guy.
See also, I don’t hate manual transmissions:
I just saw on TikTok there’s a new law that will stop this.
– Random Guy
Yes, I would enjoy no longer having to explain that there isn’t some grand conspiracy among airlines to guarantee that aviation emergencies result in everyone dying. But that’s maybe a story for another day.
Finally, Matt wrote about how Renault CEO Luca de Meo is punching the clock on Renault and the automotive industry as a whole. Who will replace him? Arch Duke Maxyenko:
Who ends up as CEO of Renault? Garlos Chosn, who has arrived in a drum case and looks suspiciously like Carlos Ghosn, but with glasses and a mustache, so clearly not the same person.
Have a great day, everyone!
Top graphic images: Nissan; The Godfather/Paramount
I got that fish reference. Merci for the laughs!
Oh it had to be nsane’s Altima story
Gharlos Cosn, clearly.
@Nsane In TheMembraNe . . . you gotta’ pitch your story as the pilot episode for a spin-off of the HBO “Duster” TV series.
“Altima,” Coming to HBO in May 2027.
It’s a 90-minute movie, but get this, we’ll stretch it out into 3 seasons of 10 episodes at an hour each!
I didn’t know studio execs read The Autopian.
Studio execs don’t read. Pfft.
If only there was an industry committed to accurately disseminating important information as a public service. They could throw in some entertainment, too. Maybe call it “newest developments.”
I bet that could be a nice little business. You’d probably want to cap how many different methods of dissemination a single entity could own, to ensure a diverse set of views gets out in a reasonably truthful manner.
Probably also best to provide analysis and explanation of why things matter. In the wrong hands it could really be twisted for an agenda.
I’m glad everyone enjoyed my story! For some reason Shitbox Showdown unlocked a core memory…er core trauma, I guess lol.
The Autopian is a lot like therapy.
I still can’t, in good conscience, ever vote for an Altima, man.
And we will all float on (face down in the East River) okay.
Well done, nice to see a good, real story make the cut.
… so you dropped a dime on your mob nota girlfriend. I’m not sure that confession booth event will give you much absolution.
IT WAS COMPLETELY PLATONIC GODDAMMIT
Ha, yeah, lol. That always really chaps my hide how people just can’t wrap their heads around the existence, much less the very concept, of platonic relationships. Good grief.
To be fair, in college, they’re often “platonic, but there was that one time after that one party, but we couldn’t stop giggling long enough to get anywhere.”
I’m pretty sure the uncle, Robert De Niro doppelgänger, enforcer would be the one you’d want to convince
I did my best. To be fair, I do suppose it was a little conspicuous that we were two heterosexual opposite sex 20 year olds that were inseparable. But then again I think that’s why she liked me so much. She’d garnered a reputation for being….a bit of a free spirit sexually our freshman year (some of it was earned, some of it went too far) so I think she was just happy to have a guy around who wasn’t trying to get her in bed….and I was happy that I could just be my normal weird ass self around her.
Suuuuure it was. 😉
Actually I have a few platonic female friends and it’s always a fun game when we go out to eat to see how the waiter is going to handle the check.
Woooowhoooooo