Infiniti EX

A new brand to these shores, Inifiniti is the luxury arm of Nissan and the EX is an all-wheel drive crossover vehicle that will act as its beach head. Andy Enright reports

One of the thorniest issues car manufacturers have had to face in the last decade or so has been not just building cars but managing brands.

Build
Comfort
Depreciation
Economy
Equipment
Handling
Insurance
Performance
Styling
Value

Brand building can either be fiendishly difficult or childishly simple, largely depending on the inherent strength of the product you are selling. Of course, canny marketing can push the appeal of rather flawed merchandise but this is a short term win and in car manufacturing, where planning horizons and investment requirements are huge, this sort of approach usually ends in tears. Several specialist car makers have come to the fore in recent years with beautifully designed vehicles that have rapidly established a niche but projecting a big budget, mainstream brand onto the public consciousness requires a different set of rules. Infiniti, the luxury arm of Nissan, is attempting to do just that.

You might well be familiar with the brand if youve travelled to the US, Infiniti having been a player in that market since 1989. They tended to be the premium cars you walked past in the rental lot on the way to your crummy Oldsmobile and left you cursing your short sighted spendthrift.

"The 3.5-litre V6 engine is much the same unit that powers the 350Z"

All American Infiniti models bar the huge FX45 ride on the Nissan FM platform, the chassis that has spawned the Skyline and the 350Z coupes. The EX model is a sports crossover vehicle that competes in its home market with the BMW X3 and the Acura RDX and which is set to go toe to toe with the BMW over here as well as with other minor players like the Subaru Tribeca, the Audi Q5 and, yes, Nissan products like the Murano. The 3.5-litre V6 engine is much the same unit that powers the 350Z and the Murrano, tuned in US specification for 293bhp.

By most objective assessments its a great engine, gutsy, modern and with a great note at the top end, but its also the EXs Achilles heel - UK sales figures showing that the market for petrol-powered vehicles such as this are vanishingly small. Still, itll zip the Infiniti EX to 60mph in just 6.3 seconds and on to a top speed of around 140mph so its got the chops to keep many sports cars honest. It handles sharply too, giving some credence to Infinitis coupe-crossover claim.

It never feels tall and tippy in the way a lot of these vehicles can and all the control weights are well judged, the steering feeling very well-oiled and expensive. Driving a car like this in the US gives only a vague approximation as to how a properly developed version thats been honed for British roads will handle and engineers at Nissans Cranfield technical centre will doubtless tune the ride quality to handle the sort of potholes that make Albanian roads seem like a Hermann Tilke race track. So what exactly is Infinitis take on a coupe-crossover? The rather strangely proportioned curves hint at all manner of genres and after walking around the EX for a while, youll probably be little the wiser. Yes, there is a coupe-like sweep to the rear haunches and the roof line has a bit more gravity acting on it towards the back, but its still resolutely tall in the middle.

With an unfashionable amount of fresh air sitting between tyre top and wheel arch, the EX also carries hints of jacked-up estates like the Volvo XC70 or the Audi allroad. Its about the same size as a BMW X3 on the outside but theres less room in the luggage bay than with the baby Beemer. Build quality seems good, the interior styling being a little less clunky than a Lexus but still not as slick as a premium German product. Inifiniti claims that many of the finishes will be up-rated to cope with notoriously finicky Europeans! Although just the petrol model will initially make it to the UK, the EX range will subsequently be bolstered with the addition of a diesel-engined variant, powered by what is expected to be a derivative of Renaults 3.

0-litre dCi lump in 2009. Whereas the American market gets rear-wheel drive and all-wheel drive variants, Infiniti has no plans to bring a rear-wheel drive EX to the UK. An all-new gearbox is also being readied for Infinitis assault on Yurp. What Infiniti needed to really snatch some headlines and position the brand as bold, progressive and different was a standout product.

Instead, we get the EX. While its a competent piece of kit with decent build quality, interesting styling and solid engineering, it falls down in two key areas. Firstly, its only being launched with a petrol engine, which will reduce it to the smallest of niche roles. The more damning indictment is that it does nothing new.

The market is becoming oversaturated with this sort of product and one has to question whether it needs another. I have no doubt that Infiniti can, in the fullness of time, bring some brilliant cars to market and as a statement of intent the EX is not without merit. The realisation doesnt take long to dawn, however, that the European market is not the arena this car was designed for. It would be one thing were Infiniti hoping to cream off a few incremental sales at little cost but a full onslaught of 80 dealerships across Europe is planned.

In order to succeed, the EX would need to be very well equipped and savagely priced, possibly even as a brand building loss leader. One suspects thats not about to happen.

FACTS AT A GLANCE

CAR: Infiniti EX35
PRICES: £34,000 [est]
INSURANCE GROUPS: 17 [est]
CO2 EMISSIONS: 270g/km [est]
PERFORMANCE: 0-60 6.3s
FUEL CONSUMPTION: 17mpg (city) 24mpg (highway)
STANDARD SAFETY FEATURES: tba
WILL IT FIT IN YOUR GARAGE?: length 4675mm