Video: 2015 Infiniti Q50

After Infiniti's puzzling lineup-wide name change, you might wonder just what car you're looking at here. Not to worry. This is actually the successor to Infiniti's well-received G37 sedan, and it's called the Q50. The Q50 solidifies its place in Infiniti's lineup with things like a shapelier version of the brand's familiar grill here. There's also new cues like aggressive looking headlights, more dramatic lines here, along the fenders and the side body lines. With the Q50, Infiniti took a good thing and made it even better. We'll show you how. The G's 3.7 liter V6 is back in the Q50. It's a potent engine, plenty of power from low to high revs, lots of power. As soon as you step on the gas, even from a stop. Enthusiasts will miss that there is a six speed manual transmission in the G. Not yet in the Q50, although Infiniti says one will be available. There is a seven speed automatic transmission for now. Hesitates a little bit on kick down. A little clumsy finding the right gear all the time, but generally, a pretty good ally to performance. Handling follows in the G37's footsteps. Dynamics are pretty good in the Q50. It's easy to kick the tail out, and the all-wheel drive system in our test car handles like a rear-wheel drive system in many situations. Steering feels totally different this year, though, thanks to a new steer-by-wire system which uses sensors and signals to steer the wheels, as opposed to a mechanical linkage. Although there is a mechanical linkage, should there be a failure in the system Infiniti says provides quicker, more tight steering than the normal system in the Q50. It is an option, but it's part of a $3,000 package. Pretty expensive to get it. The G37 had a little bit of an aging dashboard design, but really excellent interior materials. The Q50 drops the ball a little bit in areas kind of here along the door below knee level. There's some harder, cheaper plastics. A little nitpicky, but you know, if you're a luxury car shopper, you get to kind of nitpick that sort of stuff in your car. But very, very advanced, modern looking design here. There's still a twin cal dashboard, but it's asymmetrical in the way it kind of does things. Things like cherry wood trim, real metal here along the doors. Check out this line here. It starts at the very top of the dashboard, kind of runs all the way down here along the center console area toward the driver. Kind of some cool touches like that. Plenty of stuff to look at. We're a little more mixed on the controls here. Infiniti's new InTouch multimedia system places two screens here along the center of the dash. The top screen is eight inches. The bottom screen is seven inches. The top screen controls things like the navigation system with tablet-like functionality. You can kind of pinch to zoom in or zoom out. You can kind of scroll the map, just using your finger and dragging it across there. Pretty easy to use up there. This bottom screen here has things like vehicle settings. It's got things like shortcuts to navigation and audio settings and stuff like that. Very glitch prone, our editors found, and very kind of slow to move around the sub-menus. Fortunately, there are buttons alongside, physical buttons, for things like the climate control, and the multimedia radio and volume functions. The Q50 is lower and wider than the G37 sedan, and front seat headroom and legroom both increase, Infiniti says. I'm about six feet tall. That's where I would sit to drive. Back seat legroom here, actually pretty good in the Q50. Headroom situation, kind of like a meal at Red Lobster. It's okay. A lot of cars, including luxury cars have arm hinges that kind of dive into the trunk and require separate channels here. Infiniti put stress hinges alongside the trunk. Keeps the trunk nice and wide, means you can do things like fit in a bag of golf clubs here, width-wise without too much trouble. Not a very tall trunk, but reasonably deep. You add it all up, and, overall cargo volume beats competitors like the Cadillac ATS and the Acura TL. The base rear-wheel drive Q50 starts just over $37,000, including the destination charge. All-wheel drive adds about $1,800 across the board, but, expensive convenience and safety features can easily drive the price of this car to over $50,000. Making matters more confusing, Infiniti plans to sell the outgoing G37 alongside the Q50. The old car will start several thousand dollars less than this new one. The Q50 impresses for its boundless power, its athletic road manners, its elegant interior. Just make sure you watch out for your bottom line. (car driving)