2007 Infiniti G35

Nearly 15,000 miles in, the second-generation G35 continues to be a staff sweetheart, although one of its attributesis leaving us especially sour. "Our G35 is plagued by an annoying, overly aggressive throttle tip-in," rants editorat large St. Antoine, who piloted the G up to the annual Concours d'Elegance at Pebble Beach. Other editors havepreviously noted this aggravation, and it turns out Infiniti is listening. "The Infiniti execs I spoke with atPebble say that, based partly on our criticisms, they've cured this shortcoming with a newly programmed ECU for 2008models." We're looking forward to trying the fresh electronics, which should eliminate, as St. Antoine says, "the head-jerk you get when pulling away from a stop."

Super-sensitive throttle aside, St. Antoine enjoyed his 800-mile weekend in the G, noting that "ride quality withour S version is quite firm, but the payoff is superb chassis responsiveness when driving down twisting roads likeHighway 1." While we chose the new G37 coupe over the BMW 335i coupe in a recent comparison test, we still preferthe 335i sedan in light of our G35 S. St. Antoine concurs: "The G comes up short in terms of ultimate chassisfinesse when compared with a 3 Series, but it's darn good and awfully competitive."

According to copy editor James Dryden, who took the Infiniti to Scottsdale, Arizona, the G's air-conditioning isperhaps overly competitive. "The A/C works great-at 120 degrees going through Death Valley, we were makingPopsicles!" Dryden also found the glovebox "too small to hold a few CDs and the owner's manual," while the centerconsole was "roomy enough for 10 CDs, but they have to be positioned the same way or the armrest won't close." Whynot bring an iPod? Well, as St. Antoine notes, "The G35 doesn't have a minijack aux input; instead, the centerconsole has aux RCA plugs (for what, playing the audio from your camcorder while on the move?). Further, the compactflash card audio input is a silly, trying-to-be-different feature. C'mon, everybody has an iPod, and I don't want tokeep uploading my music collection onto different cards or devices."