From the January 2003 issue of Car and Driver.
The first time Infiniti glued its Mt. Fuji-peak badge on a two-door was 13 years ago. The M30 was a four-year-old Nissan Leopard, rousted from the home market and hastily decorated with Infiniti tinsel to help fill out the new brand’s product line. Parked in the shadow of the fabulous Q45, the rectangular M30 made it painfully obvious where Nissan spent its product budget for Infiniti.
If John Adams were alive today, he might say, “One useless man is a disgrace, two are a law firm, and three or more are Nissan’s product-planning department.” The company pretty much fumbled its way through the high times of the past decade, succeeding the M30 and Q45 with a raft of eminently forgettable Infinitis while luxury competitors ate its lunch.
Not so this time.
The G35 coupe is the most appealing article to slide down the Infiniti chute since the original Q. Its hunky body hugs the earth and looks swish enough never to be confused with the four-door G35. It seats its patrons in comfort and supplies steaming performance, thanks to a few potent ingots of aluminum. Under the hood is the big 3.5-liter V-6 making its 280 horsepower, and down in the wheel wells the various control arms and links of the elaborate suspension reach for the pavement.
Nissan’s product planners deserve credit for their moment of inspiration. A few years ago they decided to split the sports-car duties of the company’s sophisticated rear-drive FM chassis, which also underpins the G35 sedan. Whereas the old 300ZX came as both a two-seater and an elongated (and somewhat ungainly-looking) two-plus-two, Nissan decided to split the Z variants between its mainstream and upscale brands.
Exhibit A is the comparo-winning Nissan 350Z (“Hot Tin Roofs,” December, 2002) that features bucket seats for two on a 104.3-inch wheelbase. Exhibit B is the G35 two-door with slightly softer springs and four seats planted between axles that ride 112.2 inches apart.
Note that this is also the wheelbase of the G35 sedan, a car that distinguished itself in a comparison test in October, 2002, (“Waiting for a Bimmer Beater”) by having the longest wheelbase of the group by more than four inches. In Holland, G35s would be put to work spanning canals.
All that acreage between the wheels should bode ill for the coupe’s handling, especially since the example pictured here, at 3485 pounds, totes 122 more pounds than the recently tested and similarly equipped 350Z Touring from December; and especially considering that the G35 sedan was knocked for nervous oversteer that made turning off the electronic skid control on a public road a certified health threat.
But whether because of the meatier 18-inch rubber that is standard on the six-speed coupe or a relocated center of gravity (or both), the G35 coupe remains unflappably stable and neutrally balanced. Indeed, the coupe turned in a scorching 0.90-g run on the skidpad, the highest number by 0.02 g we have recorded for the entire G35/Z family. The wheel is a precise scalpel and the turn-in aggressive, and the body remains level and composed through the corners.
At track speeds, the fun fades in the turns not because of tail wagging but owing to progressive front-end scrubbing. As with the Z, the G hits understeer at the border of its performance envelope, but it won’t intrude on your daily enjoyment of the car’s spry footwork unless you view your morning commute as a time trial.
Even if it does, the clear vista forward from behind the wheel makes it easy to bayonet the G35’s snout precisely into corners. The gauges are low and, unlike the Z’s, corralled into a single binnacle that moves with the tilting column. If orange is your favorite color—it isn’t around here—you’ll love the otherwise plain dials.
Rectilinear shapes and machined-metal accents, the industrial mayonnaise of the Z cockpit, are spread on less thickly in the G. Traditional rubber pedal pads, for example, stand in for the Z’s drilled aluminum shoe stops.
The coupe’s interior is an identical copy of the sedan’s, right down to the arresting mix of buttons. There are big black plastic jobs on the door panels, small metal kernels on the steering wheel, and modern double-size squares on the center column. The seat controls next to your inboard thigh are something else altogether, and the dash mixes up smooth surfaces with ones with elephant-skin texture and ones with polka-dot perforations. Nissan has become the company where no idea goes to waste.
The G’s yards of textured black plastic and the matte silver center stack proclaim “luxury car!” and only whisper “on the cheap.” The door panels are as plain as the plains. The center console substitutes a true armrest with seat-heater buttons. The digital display up top that resembles a mail slot is thin on information. One nice bonus: All G35s get an in-dash, six-disc CD changer plus a tape deck for bookworms.
The G’s seats greet their visitors with hospitality and make friends with all. One editor pronounced them the best thing this side of a Recaro. The forward buckets are big enough to support the lower legs, the seatbacks concave enough to counter sideways gravity in the corners. The pedals, the wheel, and the fungus-shaped shifter sit in close, accessible orbit, the latter being a precise but somewhat imperfect tool in that it gives the forearm a workout with overly heavy detents. Honda’s secret recipe for a perfect shifter remains, well, a secret.
Two adults of female size can fit comfortably into the rear, but headroom is definitely wanting for six-footers. Perhaps more amazingly, two golf bags will squeeze into the G35’s eight-cubic-foot trunk. Don’t believe it? There’s a small placard thoughtfully pasted to the trunk liner to show how it’s done.
The arching chassis brace that annoyingly bisects the Z’s hatchback trunk is present in the G, but because the G is not a hatchback and is 12.6 inches longer than the Z, the brace resides deep in the trunk under the parcel shelf. Z owners will need more than a spatula to fit two golf bags; they’ll need a crowbar.
The brace contributes to the G’s relative indifference to bumps and frost heaves. Impact energy still finds its way through the taut structure, especially since road-surface changes are being telegraphed nearly verbatim by the robust 45-series Michelin rubber around the wheels. But the cockpit is isolated and the ride compliant enough to polish off the harsh edges.
More vibrations come through the pedals and shifter from the six coffee cans up front. As in all the G- and Z-cars fitted with Nissan’s VQ DOHC 24-valve 3.5-liter V-6, the engine makes trucklike torque at low revs and trucklike sound and vibrations at high revs. The river of sine waves through the cabin and the rasp of the exhaust make going to the redline in the G less intoxicating than in, say, an Acura 3.2CL Type-S or a BMW 330Ci, two alternative selections in the duo-door class with vastly superior sound signatures (“Hobson’s Choice,” July 2002).
In straight performance numbers, the G35 keeps the pace. The G35’s 6.0-second 0-to-60-mph dash and 14.6 quarter-mile are within a 10th or two of the Type-S and 330Ci (and about a half-second down on the Z Track), even if the aural experience is lacking. The G35’s combination of Brembo calipers and 12.8-inch front rotors needs only 157 feet to convert 70 mph of kinetic energy into heat, seven fewer than the 350Z Track and fewer than both of the previously cited coupe competitors.
Okay, the Acura pulls off its performance with 20 less horsepower and front-wheel drive, but it’s styled to win snooze competitions. The BMW has better moves, lighter controls, and more fluid power delivery, but buyers have to walk at least another eight thousand steps into their bank account for a similarly equipped 330Ci.
Of the FM offshoots we’ve tried so far, none won the near-universal approval enjoyed by the G35 coupe. Perhaps that’s because the G35, positioned as a luxury touring car, seems a more honest sales pitch than the go-for-it 350Z, considering the limits of the engine and chassis. No doubt it has something to do with the fact that few of the G35 sedan’s foibles manifested themselves here.
And unlike a few other sedan-based coupes out there, the G35 offers more than just two fewer doors and a boosted price. Infiniti is awakening. Who says 13 is an unlucky number?
Counterpoint
There will come a time during the ownership of a 350Z when one fantasizes about hauling more than a single passenger and enjoying luggage capacity beyond that of a toothbrush and a pair of Speedos. At that point one might wish he or she had opted for the 350’s larger and more elegant brother, the Infiniti G35 coupe. This is one tasty machine, a legitimate two-plus-two with accommodations for a duet of rear-seat travelers and ample trunk space for weekend jaunts. Heavier by 122 pounds and down by seven horsepower against the Z, this is not so much a sports car but rather a captivating grand tourer that ranks with the best in the world. —Brock Yates
This coupe’s low-roof shape, tapering to a high tail, really does it for me, same as the fastback Kellison GT did back when I was sketching cars in study hall. It had a low forehead and gun-slit side windows, perfect for Bonneville or for lurking in any of the small Iowa towns I might drive to. I showed my dad a picture of it once. There was a long pause. Expecting admiration, I leaned forward to hear every nuance. His verdict came down in one word: “Preposterous.” Years later, when “bad” is good and “sick” is extra cool, I think this Infiniti coupe is perfectly preposterous. Make mine black. I’m way behind in my lurking. —Patrick Bedard
I’m starting to see 350Zs roaming the streets of L.A., and the design is not growing on me as I thought it would. Reason enough to buy an Infiniti G35 coupe instead. It’s a great-looking car with a just-about-perfect stance, and it flaunts elegant contours. So it’s 7 hp down on the Z-car; big deal, there’s enough power to have fun with, and the slightly longer wheelbase helps avoid the dreaded freeway hop with which the 350Z is amply endowed. And then there’s the back seat. At six foot five, I contend that only gnomes can sit back there, but the space is great for briefcases and jackets. The final point in the argument? Infiniti dealers. Case closed. —Barry Winfield
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Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com
