Wednesday, April 6, 2011
It's all about the curves.
No, you haven't logged on to Playboy's home page by mistake. But words like "sexy" and "voluptuous" just might get used in the next few paragraphs. Infiniti, the near-luxury division of Nissan that originally tried to sell us cars by showing us pictures of trees and running water in its TV commercials (just no cars), has finally realized that cars, at their best, are tactile, emotional, exciting...and sent the stylists to the drawing board with just that in mind.
A great leap forward? Well, yeah. Click here for a reminder of what last year's Infiniti M looked like. We've gone from mildly upscale vanilla Japanese design to "somebody has a Maserati poster on their bedroom wall" in one model year.
Wanna know the really hot part?
It's cheaper.
The fabulous curves, the big boost in power...is accompanied by a base price that's $1,700 lower than the last model.
And it gets better mileage. 16 city/22 highway is now 18/26.
Wanna talk more about curves? Fine. It handles them like a slot car. Like it's on rails. Find a twisting, turning road and you'll be grinning like an idiot.
You'll steal glances over your shoulder when you park it and walk away.
Your wife, girlfriend or both will be jealous of this car.
Yes, it's that good.
Wherever Infiniti found the $1700 to cut, it wasn't the interior. Better than ever, with virtually everything standard at $46,250. Our tester had exactly four options: The trunk mat, trunk net and first aid kit ($195), illuminated kick plates ($350), the Sport package (which swaps the standard 18 inch alloys for 20-inchers, and adds sport suspension, sport brakes, paddle shifters, 4-wheel active steer, plus sport seats, steering wheel and shift knob) for $3,650, and the Premium Package (hard drive Nav sysstem, color touch-screen, XM NavTraffic and NavWeather, Zagat Survey restaurant reviews, voice recognition, an upgraded Bose 10-speaker audio system, with Bluetooth streaming audio and a 9.3 GB hard drive to store your music, climate controlled fron seats and a heated steering wheel) for $3,350. Add $865 for destination charges and the total is $54,660....$255 less than the similarly loaded (but less powerful and less beautiful) 2010 model.
Sure, the bottom line is a bargain only in relative terms. But drive it. Then tell me you don't want one.
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