The 2013 Nissan Sentra has been revealed, and the new model seems ready to compete where the outgoing one couldn’t. The new Sentra will get 40-mpg highway in the gas-sipping-special FE+ model and 39-mpg highway in other models.

The 2013 Sentra’s fuel economy comes thanks to a new 1.8-liter engine with 130-hp and an upgraded CVT that helps the car get a 30-mpg city rating and 39-mpg highway rating. Of equal importance to most buyers will be the 2013 Sentra’s styling, and Nissan pulled out the stops on that. With a trapezoidal grill, flame surfacing and even a bit of a bangle butt, the Sentra’s looks are now caught up with all of the trends and way ahead of the Civic and Corolla. The Sentra looks just like a 5/6ths scale Altima, something that will probably help sell it to buyers who land on the lot looking for the larger car but find out they can’t afford it.

The last generation Sentra was a blemish on Nissan’s lineup. Nissan heavily incentivized the last generation Sentra for years, offering lease deals on it for less than the smaller and much less expensive Versa. Nissan is hoping to fix that with this Sentra, and claims that this year’s redesign is the most revolutionary one in the model’s 30-year history. Hopefully that means it will be more revolutionary than the 1995 model that dropped the Sentra from the top of the list of small cars (so good that it’s still sold today in some markets) to an also-ran that seemed to be sold in the hope that some buyers just want something besides the Civic and Corolla but really want to buy Japanese.