Infiniti
Infiniti is the premium brand of Japan's Nissan Motors. It got its start in 1989 to go against Toyota's Lexus which was taking a serious and successful run against the usual suspects from Germany. Unfortunately for Nissan,
Infiniti was a dog.
No offence to my canine friends, the Infiniti dogs were ugly and boring and under-powered and barely sold. The decent thing to do would have been to put
Infiniti out of its misery and that was almost done in Y2K.
What happened next is another part of the Carlos Ghosn legend. Ghosn is one of the most successful and innovative automotive CEOs in the business. As head of Nissan (and controlling partner Renault) and with his back against the wall, Ghosn told his Infiniti engineers to go out and build him BMWs. With the Japanese talent for reverse engineering and flawless manufacturing they soon came up with some winners. Even the buyers of such things awoke from their BMW, Audi, Mercedes addictions and actually started shopping
Infiniti.
The leader of the
Infiniti attack is the mid-size G series and the poster child of the G is the G37 Coupe. With Infiniti now experiencing its best sales ever in North America I thought it was time to get some serious seat-time in the flagship. So I drove to Boston and back in a 2010 Infiniti G37 Coupe AWD.
The G37 Coupe comes in four flavours with the base rear-drive model stickered at $46,300. The tester, of course, was the fully loaded AWD version with tons of options which boosted the price to $54,400. My advice -- buy the base model. It too will arrive with the G37's great looks, precise handling and the 3.7-liter, 328-horsepower V6 connected to a smooth, seven-speed automatic. This combination, according to people with stopwatches, is faster than the comparably priced BMW 328i.
I wasn't carrying a stopwatch but I can tell you that in the left lane of the New York Thruway or the Mass Pike I had no difficulty keeping up with adventurous Mercs or Bimmers. The Infiniti's adaptive cruise control kept me at a respectable distance behind them, thus ensuring they, not I, went through the radar trap first. By the way, if the cops don't highjack your wallet on those roads, the toll booths will.
So,with a couple of thousand kilometres at the wheel , what do I think? Performance, handling, speed -- it's nailed the Bimmer benchmark. Styling -- who knows, that's a matter of personal taste, but I think this is one well-proportioned car. It's totally comfortable at the wheel, but you wouldn't want to be a back seat passenger. But so what? If you cared about the back seat or the trunk you wouldn't buy a Coupe. The one thing I did find objectionable, and perhaps a rule out for me, was the amount of wind noise and particularly road noise. Maybe you sports car fans like that but I like a quiet car like the Chevy Malibu, at half the money, which provides a more serene environment for a long trip.
The very good G series has probably saved
Infiniti from extinction and the Coupe is the most Bimmer-like G of them all. This is a true competitor at last and should be considered by those who just can't wait to lay their money down on something with that classy BMW blue ‘n white roundel. Make no mistake, the Bimmer 3 Series is still champion in the sales competition leading by about 5 to 3 overall.
But my bottom line for the G Coupe? It's the closest thing anywhere to the Bimmer's 3 Series dominance. That's Carlos Ghosn again; he's a bit busy as CEO of two major automotive companies, but he still had time to fix
Infiniti. I hope he doesn't blow up with some stupid business decision because in saving
Infiniti, and in saving Nissan for that matter, his performance puts him up in Ford's Alan Mulally's bracket as the top automotive CEO still standing.
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