First Drive Review
Once upon a time, the marketing mavens at Infiniti spotted a gap in their lineup. They saw a rear-wheel-drive sedan - the G35 - starting at less than $30,000, and they saw a flagship sedan - the Q45 - priced in the low $50s. But there was nothing other than their QX4 SUV around the $40,000 mark, and that, as we've noted before, is not a car.
To their amazement, the mavens saw a 20-grand gap, big enough to tempt existing lower-end Infiniti car owners off to other manufacturers when they get The Big Promotion. Said the mavens, "We can't have that, can we? Not when our company already makes a car for its home market in Japan that would fit right in."
Over there, the gap-plugging car is called the Cedric or the Gloria, depending on which of Nissan's sales outlets you visit. In one of its zoomiest iterations, the car has a turbocharged 3.0-liter V-6 engine punching out 276 horsepower and about the same amount of torque.
But since the Cedric/Gloria platform provided the basis for the Q45 in the first place, there was a swell way in which Infiniti could pull one of its niche-busting tricks and stick a V-8 right in among the competitors' six-cylinders at a price in the low $40s. Seems you can just take the Q45's four-cam eight-banger and drop it right in. Voilà! - a convincing reason to choose an Infiniti instead of a similarly priced Acura 3.5RL or Lexus GS300.
Of course, there is a V-8-powered sedan sitting on that price point. It's called the Lincoln LS. But Infiniti hopes to sway customers with its import panache and perceived superiority in durability, reliability, and quality.
To bolster its chances, the company has also transplanted many of the luxury items found in the flagship Q45 into the new M45: "Sojourner" leather upholstery, bird's-eye-maple trim, xenon headlights, vehicle-speed-sensitive steering assist, ABS, stability control, and more. Options include a DVD-based navigation system, a laser-based intelligent cruise control, a tire-pressure warning system, a sunroof, climate-controlled front seats, and a voice-recognition system. In short, there isn't much in a Q45 that can't be had in the M45.
Except for one thing: space. The Nissan Gloria/Cedric was intended for the Japanese market, and it shows. At least it does to westerners with long legs and torsos, particularly in an M45 with the sunroof option. That mechanism displaces some all-important headroom, leaving a few of us with our scalps touching the headliner.
For its role in the U.S. market, the rebadged Glorias wear new grilles, lights, fascias, badges, wheels, and brightwork. The overall effect is somewhat conservative, but the M45 is still arguably better-looking than the Q45, and it does pack that 4.5-liter V-8 in a slightly lighter package (by about 110 pounds). Moreover, the motor is hooked to a shorter final-drive gear (3.13 versus 2.76), making response to the pedal that much brighter.
