Elite Auto Rental Blog

The new M is the best thing Infiniti’s done and comes close to making BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Cadillac irrelevant. It offers as much panache and performance as those do with fewer privations, at sometimes-lower prices.

The ‘06 M replaces a nearly anonymous model called M45 that was meant to plug a hole in Infiniti’s lineup and sold in small numbers.

The M is sold with a choice of engines. M35 has a 280-horsepower V-6. M45 has a 335-hp V-8.

Both go with remarkable and joyous dispatch. The manual-shift mode of the automatic transmission can snap down through the gears as if it were wired into your brain, not manipulated by your hand.

The extraordinary way the M stops and steers suffuses the driver with road-rare serenity.

The M is spacious and comfortable. Its controls and features are high-tech fancy without the stupid factor that usually accompanies such. In fact, M seems to be a car designed by people wise enough to know when to quit. Almost nothing is done just because it could be.

What more could you want? How about top-flight all-wheel-drive (AWD) so you needn’t leave your nice car whimpering helplessly in bad weather? Got it, albeit only available with the V-6. Infiniti says it won’t sell enough V-8s to justify the costs of developing and marketing an M45 AWD model.

Two test cars were driven: M35x, the “x” signifying AWD, and an M45 Sport, the “Sport” designating bigger wheels, different trim, brakes that’ll stop on a dime and give you 9 cents change, and a suspension not meant to make the acquaintance of potholes.

Both testers were pre-production models, some of the final cars built to test the fit of parts and the factory’s assembly process. Little seemed amiss.

A closer look at some elements that make the M a heartthrob:

• Looks. Reasonable people often disagree on matters of taste, but so what? M’s sweep and stance are terrific. The instrument panel’s voluptuous cross-car curves invite physically and satisfy visually.

Far from outrageously styled, the M nonetheless is arresting and proved it by yanking plenty of heads around in the kind of double-takes usually reserved for sports cars.

• Drivetrain. Glorious. Even the V-6 AWD — heaviest of all the models — accelerates with snap and snarl. The V-8 is explosively frisky.

Use the manual-shift mode, especially for downshifts. It has what Infiniti calls “rev matching.” It feels and sounds the way a car should when you engage a lower gear. The engine speed jumps and — nothing else happens. No stumbling as if the car is falling on its nose, nor jerky moment as the engine tries to match its speed to the transmission’s.

The transmission does not work as wonderfully in other modes but shifts crisply enough to suit most.

AWD provides stable footing on both slick and dry pavement without a second thought. It splits power 50/50 front/rear in normal driving, shifts up to 100% to the rears under hard acceleration or when the fronts lose grip.

• Controls. Knobs for volume and tuning on the radio. Applause.

A fat knob on the dashboard makes you cringe because you expect it to be a confounding control system like the ones the German makers favor. Instead, it lets you skip through short, simple menus of options. And you needn’t use it at all for most settings, because most have their own separate knobs and buttons on the instrument panel. Satisfying for techies, nearly intuitive for Luddites, superfluous for those who’d simply rather not.

Each of the four power windows is one-touch up or down. That’s not exclusive to the M, but it isn’t a sure thing in every luxury car, and it’s a sign that Infiniti considers such seemingly minor matters important. That attention to detail is what separates true luxury cars from the merely expensive ones.

• Décor. Rosewood trim on some models is real. Aluminum on others is, too. No faux. That’s a statement of integrity. Both look great, too — unless you get the buckskin-color leather with the rosewood trim. Yuck. Looks as if you tried to match colors and didn’t quite.

• Room. Wow. Some big trucks have less for your legs. The front is listed as having 44 inches, about 3 inches more than most cars. The rear seat gives you about 37 inches, more than adequate for most adults, and leverages it by carefully curving the backs of the front seats to keep away from the back-seaters’ knees.

The measurement shows that not all legroom is created equal. Cadillac, for example, says the STS — an M rival — has about 38 inches in back, but that seat’s legroom isn’t even close to the M’s, numbers to the contrary notwithstanding. Nobody’s fibbing, they’re just measuring at different points.

M’s middle rear seat is minimal, though. As is typical on rear-drive cars, the big driveshaft tunnel eliminates leg space. And Infiniti inexcusably fails to provide center child-seat latches to make it easy to use that otherwise marginal slot for junior. Instead, you have to wrangle the car’s safety belt to hold a child seat in place.

• Tech. If gadgets are your thing, there are enough to satisfy — lane departure warning, for instance. Sensors know if you’re about to stray over the lane line and beep at you. It gets old fast. You can turn it off, but the switch is tucked inconveniently near the lower edge of the dashboard.

An optional back-up camera system has the brightest image display on the market and provides two sets of guidelines on the screen. One set runs straight back and the other bends as you steer the car while backing, to show where you’re headed. Excellent.

Rear-wheel steering on the Sport models will turn the back wheels 1 degree to help the car round a bend.

And on and on. Giving up the keys to these testers was very, very hard.

But I’d bet www.driveyourdream.com has one YOU can test drive.  Check them out.