2003 Infiniti Q45 Review (continued)
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Walkaround

The Infiniti Q45 has a presence that draws second looks, if not stares. We stopped in front of a hotel and porters were all over it. It's being promoted as a big car that feels small, but its styling says full-size luxury all the way. It's the same overall length as the previous-generation (2001) model, but slightly wider, taller and longer in wheelbase, increasing interior space from 97.4 to 102.1 cubic feet.

Huge headlamps make the Q especially distinctive from the front. There are 18 bulbs within two big sealed lenses shaped like right triangles with fat edges. The four largest bulbs are for high beams and parking. The other 14 are high-intensity xenon-fired low beams, seven highly visible bulbs on each side forming a circle like a Gatling gun.

Such a radical appearance brings radical expectations, the ability to turn night into day. Infiniti claims the Q45's lights are among the world's most powerful, twice as bright as those on the $73,000 Mercedes-Benz S-Class (Warning: high voltage," declares the manual). Infiniti says the low beams are the industry's brightest, based on lumens (a measure of light intensity), and have a better dispersion pattern, providing long range illumination in a narrow beam, as well as wide-angle illumination in the foreground, making fog lamps unnecessary. (Most factory fog lamps are nearly worthless anyway.) The pattern of the low beams is designed to reduce glare to oncoming drivers by cutting the beam sharply on the left side. A switch on the dash allows the driver to adjust the angle of the headlights, a feature we liked. Four positions seemed like overkill, though; we either aimed them high for max visibility or low for traffic or fog (they do indeed eliminate the need for auxiliary fog lamps). The problem will be that it's easy to forget where the lights are aimed.

Overall, the front view of the Q presents a handsome shape, a sweep, as if the lines were poured on. No chrome. A wide-mouthed grille, fully but sparsely filled by four long horizontal titanium-colored slats, with a chrome Infiniti emblem in the center. A subtle front bumper and fascia includes natural-looking air intakes at the bottom.

The silhouette suggests the Chrysler Concorde, although Infiniti reps were slightly aghast when we suggested that. We think the rear end is clean and nice. You can see Nissan all over it: Altima or Maxima on a luxury scale, and a bit racier. The roof seems to have more rake when viewed from the rear.

The wheels are a nice touch, a confident statement, spidery six-spoke 17-inch alloys or more spidery eight-spoke 18s.

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Interior Features

The Infiniti Q45's plush interior is swathed in Italian leather and warmed by Bird's Eye Maple burl wood. Lots of glass, including a large sunroof that comes standard, lightens the cabin by day. Cool, functional electroluminescent gauges come out at night.

The seats are luxurious, big and firm, with 10-way power adjustment including lumbar, great for long freeway trips. But there's not enough bolstering to keep you from sliding around during the type of cornering the car is capable of.

The console is massive, thanks mostly to the navigation system, using switchgear that's a combination of big black buttons and silvery dials. Big plush armrests and two sizes of concealed cup holders complement the big firm seats. There's a hatch under the center armrest for flat things, below which lies another deeper compartment.

Back-seat passengers are provided with plush armrests with cup holders. Side curtain airbags that deploy from the roof protect both the rear- and front-seat passengers. There's an optional power sunshade in the backlight (rear window).

Trunk space measures only 13.6 cubic feet, about two-thirds of what the Lexus LS430 offers.

The Q comes with a ton of interior features, some of them bordering on the fantastic. Infiniti put a lot of effort into making its navigation system more useful. Like most of these systems, however, there is a learning curve and it's extremely important to avoid letting yourself get distracted while driving. A quick reference guide is provided and Infiniti designed the system so you can't program it while the car is moving. You turn the display off by going into the settings menu, and selecting Display Off, but it would be easier if there was a button you could hit in one step. Infiniti's system features a cool, three-dimensional bird's-eye view, like looking down at an illustration of the ground from a hang glider. Like many navigation systems, it offers a choice of routes: shortest time, shortest distance, it can even point you to the nearest ferry, should you prefer to travel by sea. It will also tell you the location of the nearest ATM, hotel, restaurant or rest area. When running low on gas, it will ask you if you want it to find the nearest gas station, a feature we've found useful. The standard Vehicle Information System screen is a 5.8-inch unit, but that expands to 7.0 inches when you order the navigation system.

On Premium models, the navigation display also provides a view to the rear on the monitor. When you're in reverse, the screen shows where you're going, eyed by a tiny camera over the license plate. Unlike the video on shuttle buses, it's in living color. the backup lights aren't bright enough for the camera lens at night, and in the sunshine it's hard to see the screen. Still, it can be useful for spotting children on tricycles and other objects that you want to avoid.

The climate control system responds to voice commands. Press a button on the steering wheel, wait for the beep, tell the dashboard what you want, and a woman's voice replies in the perfectly efficient tone of a super-secretary, Climate control temper-a-ture, six-tee seven degrees." We felt silly trying the use the system without knowing how. People begin to stare when they see you shouting commands at your car. The future will tell whether this becomes a desirable feature.

You can program all sorts of things to set themselves when you get in or out. The steering column lifts, the driver's seat adjusts, interior lights illuminate or delay, or not.

We liked the tire pressure sensor a lot. It doesn't identify which tire has which pressure, so it reveals the numbers (37, 38, 37, 36 on our car) in a column on the VIS screen, rather than in an intuitive rectangle.

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