The compact Infiniti looks very recognizable from the outside — you won't confuse it with any of its rivals.Comments (3)For this test, we took a Infiniti G35 sedan with all-wheel drive in the Sport version and decided to figure out how sporty it really is: is it more like intellectual chess or rough power work?
"Handling like a sports car" — this phrase is loved to be repeated in advertising by absolutely all automakers. Even a Renault Megane sedan with a 1.5-liter engine is presented as almost a relative of a Formula-1 car, let alone the rest. There is one reason for this approach, and great-grandfather Sigmund Freud explained it. Sport, even if it's just sitting behind the wheel, is associated with an active and healthy lifestyle. And girls, as you know, love strong and healthy guys.
The chances that the promised sporty "handling" will turn out to be real are about fifty-fifty. Either it is, or it isn't. And today, it seems, luck has smiled on us: in our hands is the chip key to a fresh sport sedan Infiniti G35, and even in the sport trim. 315 honest "atmospheric" horsepower, taken from a 3.5-liter V-shaped "six", combined with all-wheel drive in a compact stylish body not only promises, but really gives real Drive.
In the first years of its existence, Infiniti was on its own. Luxury versions of ordinary Nissans didn't impress even Americans much, and cars weren't supplied to Europe at all. A real revolution was made by the FX crossover — a stylish car on huge 20-inch wheels with powerful engines and all-wheel drive, like the legendary Nissan Skyline. New and used Infiniti cars flowed into Russia, and following the crossovers, interest in other models also woke up. A year ago, Infiniti officially started in the Russian market. At first, only large sedans and SUVs were sold, but recently they got to the G35 sport sedan, which is designed for active drivers.
On the outside, the "small" Infiniti looks very distinctive, and you won't confuse it with any competitor. The muscular hood with side bulges looks powerful, and also helps to better feel the dimensions. Cosmic headlights with incredible reflectors inside add charm. The rounded rear with a chrome spoiler reminds of "Jaguars", and the trunk of the G35 is modest — in the best traditions of English sedans. But under the floor lies a full-size spare tire.
The interior is done in a calm, slightly technocratic spirit, like other Infiniti models. Around the driver — soft plastic, wood inserts and real aluminum, styled after Japanese rice paper Washi'. The paddle shifters can be called almost ideal: their rubber pads don't freeze fingers, but at the same time look noble, like winged metal. The instrument panel with contrasting backlight reads perfectly at any time, but its shape is too simple and boring for a sport sedan — it could use at least a huge tachometer, at least scarlet backlighting, just to have some emotions.
The equipment of our car surprised a bit: the only difference of Sport from the top Premium is the interior trim with polished wood instead of aluminum. By the way, the price difference between the versions is 18,000 rubles. Whether to pay them or not is a matter of taste: personally, real aluminum, and even styled after Japanese rice paper, seems fresh and stylish to me, and wood in business sedans is already quite boring. Surprisingly, the Infiniti G35 lacks electric folding mirrors, which even the Nissan Micra has, and the power window closer is for some reason installed only on the driver's window. Is it really possible to save on this? And what will it give in the future, when the owner of an expensive car will be annoyed by such little things every day?
But enough grumbling, time to hit the road — because Sport implies movement. Hands themselves fall on the steering wheel, like in a… Ferrari Enzo!! You'd recognize it among a thousand steering wheels. The characteristic triangle of the hub could be slightly decorated with chrome for extra gloss, but it's too black.
Settling in comfortably and adjusting the steering wheel, you catch yourself thinking that in any position the wheel doesn't block the instruments. And only then you realize: the instrument cluster moves together with the steering column — a great solution! The seats gently and reliably hug the body, and the right hand pulls the stylish "automatic" selector…
At first, the start seems a bit thoughtful — the engine has to spin up the all-wheel drive transmission and accelerate a mass of 1802 kg from a standstill. And that's a lot: for comparison, the BMW 335xi, close in class, is 150 kg lighter. But as soon as the tachometer needle crosses into the right part of the scale, you forget about the mass — 315 "horses" and 358 Nm do their job perfectly and confidently, powerfully throw the sedan forward. Infiniti for some reason doesn't report the maximum speed of the G35, and we couldn't check it, but the ease with which the speedometer needle reaches 200 km/h suggests that the sedan will surely accelerate to 250 km/h.
To fully enjoy the handling of the G35, it's best to go to ice or a race track — in the city, the sedan finds it hard to reveal its full potential. But even calm driving on the streets brings a lot of pleasure: the steering effort is perfectly calibrated — despite the large mass, the sedan actively dives into corners and willingly responds to provocations. Lift off the gas and jerk the wheel — and the Infiniti smoothly and unhurriedly goes into a drift, which is immediately extinguished by the stability control system. However, turning off the electronics on the G35 doesn't make driving less safe, but adds excitement. Breaking the wheels into wheelspin on dry asphalt is completely impossible, and it's not about lack of power. Even in a corner, the transmission works so harmoniously and distributes torque so precisely among all four wheels that you needn't fear a drift. And if it does happen, it develops very smoothly, and correcting it is as easy as pie.
All-wheel drive and precise steering will surely allow you to perform incredible tricks on ice — and all this with excellent interior finish, a convenient "automatic", and the high status of the car, which "hot hatches" like the Subaru Impreza and Mitsubishi Lancer Evo can't even dream of.
At the end of the test, we accidentally met my old acquaintance. He had his heart set on a Lexus IS250 and was agonizing over which trim and body color to choose. Instead of a long argument over a cup of tea, I suggested he take a ride in the Infiniti. The G35 in the base Sport trim costs slightly more than a well-equipped, but 204-horsepower and rear-wheel drive Lexus. To be specific, 1,490,780 rubles for the G35 versus 1,401,500 for the Lexus. With all due respect to the Japanese-American division of Toyota, the extra hundred "horses" under the hood and all-wheel drive predetermined my friend's conclusion. Moreover, one of the main complaints about the Lexus was the lack of a color screen and video camera, which the Infiniti already has in the "base". For comparison, the base 306-horsepower BMW 335 Xi sedan with all-wheel drive and an "automatic" costs more than 1,800,000 rubles.
That's how affordable Sport turns out to be.
Text: Leonid Pavlov