Practically every car on display each year at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance->ke2839 is worthy of being in some sort of museum, but while most arrive to the event on a trailer, Nissan->ke62 will be taking two of its museum cars on a 300-mile road trip from L.A. to Monterey. To show the “evolution of the sports sedan,” Nissan will be hitting the road in a 1967 Datsun->ke4307 411 and 1972 Datsun 510, and these cars will be accompanied by their modern successor, the all-new 2016 Nissan Maxima.

Members of the media will be among the lucky drivers piloting the trio of sedans->ke142 on the daylong drive that departs L.A. on August 13th, and once in the Monterey Peninsula, Nissan will offer test drives of all three cars to additional media outlets. After that, the cars will head to the Monterey Motorsports Reunion held at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, as part of Nissan’s display, which will also include the 1994 Nissan 300ZX IMSA No. 75 race car.->ke148

While the old Datsuns will definitely draw deserved attention, it was interesting to hear Steve Millen, who drove the aforementioned race car, talk about the new Nissan’s newest sport sedan.

“I think the new Maxima could give some of the race cars back then a run for the money today, straight from the showroom," Millen said.

Continue reading for the full story.

Why it matters

Looking back at Nissan’s sedan lineup, it has definitely evolved from the Italian-design, 96-horsepower Datsun 411 in 1965 to the futuristic styling of 2016 Maxima and its 300-horsepower output. The Pebble Beach display should be even more impressive than last year's (the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the No. 75 race car) with the road-worthy classics on hand.

2016 Nissan Maxima

Read our full review here,