2014 Infiniti Q50S — Sexy, roomy, comfortable

By Dan Scanlan - MyCarData

Infiniti, born of Nissan 24 years ago, made a decision in 2014. All Infiniti cars would change their alphabetical prefix to “Q,” while all crossovers would change to “QX.” And Infiniti Formula One driver Sebastien Vettel was named the sport luxury car company’s Director of Performance.

Infiniti’s had always been performance-oriented luxury cars; now they would get a more dramatic evolution of their designs along with their performance, which was boosted with tweaked engines, suspension and body kits.

The result was the fifth generation of the compact G sedan, now called the Q50. And for us, it was the Q50S, with body and suspension mods on top of some serious high-tech driving aids.
Cue the Q…

• Infiniti image – The last G37 was smooth, but lacked aggression. So elements from the very aggressive 2009 Essence concept were implanted in the Q DNA. That included the glaring sculpted headlights with C-shaped LED daytime running lights and a white LED eyebrow when on, and flank a waved mesh pattern grill. The lower air intake is wide, with an air dam and gloss black side vents with amber LED turn signal bars and inset fog lights.

The grill’s outer design line becomes the long low hood’s framing as it flows into the A pillars. Another line flows off the headlights and upper fenders to go along the beltline. There’s more sculpting on the doors over a wide sill. The rear fender seems to flow off the side sculpting, while the C pillars gets a “crescent cut” reverse angle and chrome to accent it as the rear fender shoulder meets the rear window line. Wraparound taillights are joined with a chrome strip under a slim lip spoiler over twin exhaust tips.

The car rides on shapely twin-fork 5-spoke Rays Engineering gunmetal gray forged alloy wheels wearing low-profile Bridgestone Potenza P245/40R19-inch summer rubber, large disc brakes with silver “Infiniti” badges visible.

The look is good; very good. The Q hunkers down on beautiful wheels that accent its long sculpted look, while those headlights make it look a bit exotic, even evil. It got lots of looks in its silvery Hagane Blue paint job. And Infiniti says the slippery (0.27 coefficient of drag) body shape has zero front and rear lift.

• Infiniti insides – There’s some familiar Nissan/Infiniti in this driver-oriented cockpit, and new tech.
Tap the unlock button on the key fob at night and the headlight LEDs glares as more lights glow in the front door handles and under the sills – very sci-fi. You slide into well-bolstered stone parchment leather buckets seats and settle into a very driver-oriented gray over parchment cockpit with slashes of silver, wood and glossy black under a highly sculpted dashtop.

The 180-mph speedometer and 9,000-rpm tach retain the familiar purple Infiniti illumination and frame a color trip computer screen. It also shows navigation, audio, cellphone, compass and engine setting. Then comes stacked touch screens that split navigation/entertainment and vehicle functions.

The 8-inch upper screen handles navigation and displays SiriusXM weather radar, sports, stock, gas station and movies. The lower 7-inch Infiniti screen replaces knobs and switches for a myriad of functions. That includes phone, information, drive mode, settings for the keyless entry fob, driver assistance, SiriusXM information, clock displays, compass and a “garage” you fill with smartphone app buttons. You can display driver performance information like lateral Gs, steering wheel angle, fuel flow and acceleration. It displays lateral acceleration on a sine wave-like display, but only up to a half-g, and that’s practically any turn. There are no gradients on any of the fuel displays, just a moving bar. It looks cool, but doesn’t work as well as other sports car displays.

Drive Mode sets throttle and transmission response to sport, economy, standard or snow; steering to light, standard or heavy with quick or casual response; and active trace control that brakes to help cornering. There’s even a video quick guide to show you how it works. And like a smartphone, apps buttons can be slid to where you want them.

There are redundant buttons for fan, vent position, temperature and defrost on either side of the screens, all framed in wood, stitched padded leather and alloy trim. And just for fun, Intelligent Key lets you preset up the driving position, heating and cooling, audio, navigation, telematics and other settings to activate when you get in. When it is all done, the two screens do replace some of the buttons that would be needed to operate all this tech – more or less. Some of the displays are really overkill.

And there’s more. The Bose audio system with 14 speakers sounded great. The controller knob on the center console allows the driver or front passenger to display and activate audio source and list functions on the upper screen as well as adjust map scale. There’s a handy back button to get out of whatever you wandered into, and a button to activate the surround view – a pseudo birds-eye camera system to show you what’s around the car, and a fisheye front or rear view to see what’s coming from the left or right. Red or yellow accents flash if something moves in camera’s range. There’s twin cup holders, then a lower padded center armrest that opens to reveal a decent storage space with 12-volt outlet and an awkwardly placed USB, MP3 and SD card slot.

But wait — the Infiniti Q50 has even more electronic driving aides.

We had Intelligent Cruise that maintains distance and speed with the guy in front, then slows, stops and resumes travel in stop-and-go traffic. Distance Control Assist nudges brakes and pushes back on the gas pedal if you are closing too quickly on someone ahead of you when the cruise isn’t on. Forward Emergency Braking warns the driver of what the car in front is doing but claims to also track the one in front of it and apply brakes if they are all slowing down.

The Blind Spot Warning flashes a light in the A pillars when someone is there, then Blind Spot Intervention will nudge brakes to bring you back to lane center if you try to pull into another car’s path. There are backup warnings and even automatic braking if you don’t. Active Lane Control’s camera-based system beeps when you lane drift, and makes a small steering wheel input to keep you in lane.

A Lane Departure Prevention system makes steering corrections when the camera detects road surface changes or crosswinds to get you back in lane if you wander. It constantly nudges the steering and actively fights input if you change lanes without a turn signal. I shut it off – too much of an electronic nanny. I liked headlights that turned into a turn.

The glove box and door map pockets are usable. And a new thin front seatback design gives more rear foot room, and more head room despite the sloping roof line. The trunk space was usable too at 13.5 cubic feet.

• Infiniti impulse – There’s a familiar heartbeat under that long Infiniti hood – a 3.7-liter aluminum-alloy DOHC 24-valve V-6 with 328 hp and 269 lb-ft of torque. It’s basically Nissan’s 370Z’s.

Our 10,000-mile-old Q50S was rear-wheel-drive (all-wheel-drive available), routed through a 7-speed automatic transmission with manual shift mode and long leather-accented steering column-mounted magnesium paddle shifters. The result is a very quick sedan, launching with just a touch of rear wheelspin to hit 60-mph in 5.4 seconds and 100-mph in 12.8 seconds. Passing power is more than adequate and the engine offers muted snarls, blipped in paddle shift or “Sport” mode downshifts. Fuel mileage on premium was about 23-mpg.

The Q50S lives on the current FM (front mid-engine) platform shared with the 370Z. It starts with a 4-wheel independent suspension, a single pivot double-wishbone in front and a multi-link design with coil springs and shock absorbers with increased camber stiffness, stabilizer bars and a bit stiffer feel on the S. The S also ditches the base Q50’s 17-inch wheels for the 19-inchers with the P245/40R19 run-flat summer tires.

While the Sport settings can be customized to heighten throttle and steering response, they do nothing for the suspension and that’s just fine. The Q50S has a firm but fluid suspension that handles bumps quickly and with buffered rebound. It has a nice balanced feel as it tackles daily driving and flows into turns with confidence. You can control the tail via throttle, the rears caught quickly by traction control. It can be a bit tail-happy if you are too enthusiastic. Yet it feels a bit detached when pushed harder. One of the like/didn’t likes was Direct Adaptive Steering, which allowed me to tune steering feel from light to standard or heavy, with casual, standard or quick response.

Set at heavy/quick, the steering feel was far too firm and artificial, really loading up in turns. Set to light/casual, it was too wimpy. My favorite was standard/quick, which was just fine most times but still loaded up too artificially in turns. The S did have sport brakes with upgraded rotors, 4-piston front calipers and 2-piston rear. They stop the car straight and quick with no fade or nosedive and great pedal feel. Don’t get me wrong – the Infiniti had great poise and grip in turns. It just didn’t feel like it was having as much fun as it could be, since the electronics were playing it safe.

• Q cash – There are seven levels of the Infiniti Q50, starting at $37,150 on up to the hybrid starting at $44,400. Our Q50S started at $43,200 with lots of standard stuff. Our test car added a $3,200 technology package with adaptive headlights, Distance Control Assist, blind spot and backup systems, Intelligent Cruise and collision systems, lane departure and warning and advanced climate control.

A $3,100 deluxe touring package added power tilt/telescope steering, maple trim, split rear seats, the surround view camera system, parking sensors and rain-sensing wipers. A rear spoiler and gloss black grill was $860; the illuminated kickplates $400; a $240 interior lighting system; a $225 outside doorsill lighting package; and the $1,400 navigation option with SiriusXM Traffic. Total price – $53,530.

The Q50S competes with a few other high-end compact sports sedans like the $37,000 BMW 328i, $39,600 Lexus IS350, $42,000 Mercedes-Benz C350 Sport and $44,000 Cadillac ATS.

All have 3.5- or 3.6-liter V-6s except the BMW’s turbocharged four. The BMW has 240-hp, while the Benz has 302-hp, the Lexus has 321-hp and the ATS kicks out 321-hp. The ATS is fastest at 5.4 seconds to 60-mph, while the Lexus and Benz do it in just under 6 and the BMW at just over 6. All of them have more soul in their handling than the heavier Infiniti, with more driver feedback and poise in turns. They almost all have less passenger and cargo space. And except for the Cadillac and Lexus, the others don’t measure up in presence to the Q50S.

• Bottom line – The Infiniti Q50S is drop-dead cool looking, plus roomy, quiet, comfortable and powerful. But for all its good looks, the Q50S seems to have too much tech on its side. Of course, if you really want an Infiniti with some Red Bull in its veins, just wait for the Q50 Eau Rouge with a 560-hp Nissan GTR under its even more aggressive body.

2014 Infiniti Q50S
Vehicle type – 5-seat rear-wheel-drive sports sedan
Base price - $43,200 ($53,530 as tested)
Engine type - aluminum 24-valve, DOHC V-6
Displacement - 3.7 liters
Horsepower (net) - 328 @ 7,000 rpm
Torque (lb-ft) - 269 @ 5,200 rpm
Transmission - 7-speed automatic w/paddle shifters
Wheelbase - 112.2 inches
Overall length – 188.3 inches
Overall width – 71.8 inches
Height – 56.8 inches
Front headroom – 40.2 inches
Front legroom – 44.5 inches
Rear headroom – 37.5 inches
Rear legroom – 35.1 inches
Cargo capacity – 13.5 cu.ft.
Curb weight – 3,675 lbs.
Fuel capacity - 20 gallons
Mileage rating - 20 mpg city/29 mpg highway
Last word – Sexy, roomy, comfortable and capable – with too much tech maybe?