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The halls are empty now. The offices quiet. The window blinds drawn. After 40-odd years of daily hustle and bustle, Nissan’s headquarters in Gardena, California, sits idle, a “For Sale” sign staked in the front yard, the company name yanked from the building’s facade. All mail has been forwarded to Nashville, Tennessee.
Yes, the company’s corporate move to the home of country music is complete, but the 2007 Infiniti G35 sedan is a product of Nissan’s Southern California workforce. In fact, it’s the last Infiniti product to be executed in its entirety by those sun-loving surf bums, and it’s a good one.
Five trim levels are offered: G35, G35 Journey, G35x AWD, G35 Sport and G35 Sport with a six-speed manual transmission. Infiniti says the G35 Sport automatic, like our rear-drive test car, will make it the second most popular of the five models. The all-wheel-drive G35x gets a larger piece of the pie because it’s popular in the Northeast, while only 10 percent will buy the manual gearbox.
All five models are powered by the same all-aluminum 3.5-liter V6. It’s the fourth generation of the 24-valve, double-overhead-cam VQ35 engine, which honestly, we didn’t think Nissan could improve on. Wrong again. This engine now revs higher, makes more power and uses less fuel.
Approximately 80 percent of the engine’s parts are new, including the block, which has been made stronger. Nissan’s white lab coats also added electromagnetic variable valve timing to the exhaust valves, a higher compression ratio and true dual exhaust. But the coolest new gizmo under the G’s aluminum hood is the engine’s symmetric twin ram air intake system, which uses two throttle bodies and routes the incoming air around rather than through or over the radiator. Nissan says the system helps reduce airflow resistance by 18 percent and increases horsepower by 3 at 60 mph.
Now the engine lights up the spec box with 306 horsepower at 6800 rpm, 268 pound-feet of torque at 5200 rpm, a 7500-rpm redline and an EPA rating of 19 city and 26 highway when backed by the five-speed automatic. That makes the G35 more powerful than nearly all of its six-cylinder rivals, including the BMW 330i, Audi A4 3.2 and Mercedes-Benz C350. The Lexus IS 350 also packs 306 hp, but it makes more torque, 277 lb-ft, at a lower 4800 rpm; and according to the EPA, it gets better mileage (21 city/28 highway).
As you would expect from the above paragraph, the G35 blows all 12 doors off its German rivals, while the Lexus matches the Infiniti’s performance. Our tester tore up the track with a scorching 0-60-mph run of 5.6 seconds and a quarter-mile performance of 13.9 seconds at 102 mph. The last 330i we tested, which had a six-speed manual, was nearly a second slower in each test.
In the age of the six-, seven- and now eight-speed automatics, the Infiniti’s transmission, with only five forward gears, may seem behind the times. But the five-speed’s proper gearing, attentive action and ability to match revs perfectly when manually downshifted makes the transmission a standout and the perfect choice for this very capable sport sedan. It delivers all of the hard-driving advantages of BMW’s complex sequential manual gearbox (SMG) without any of that transmission’s drivability issues.
Those manual gearchanges can be made with the well-placed shifter or steering-column-mounted paddle shifters, which are cast from lightweight magnesium and covered with a delicate swatch of leather. The paddles are extra large and conveniently placed, but they don’t turn with the wheel as they do in the BMW M5.
The magnesium paddle shifters are standard on the G35 Sport, along with drilled aluminum pedals, sport seats with thigh extensions and driver’s power bolster adjustments, a sport steering wheel with specially colored stitching, 18-inch wheels and tires, a unique front fascia, a viscous limited-slip differential, and unique tuning for the car’s electronic stability system. Options exclusive to the Sport models are a four-wheel active steer system, which our test car had, and a clumsy rear spoiler, which it thankfully did not.
Infiniti says the four-wheel active steer (FWAS) system (which activates at 25 mph) improves the vehicle’s handling by adjusting the toe of the rear suspension up to one degree based on steering input and vehicle speed. At the same time, a planetary gearset that’s been added to the steering shaft varies the steering ratio between 12.0:1 and 18.5:1. We would like to say the system works but not having track tested a car without the system, it’s hard to know.
Testing a car with four-wheel active steer versus a car without it probably wouldn’t prove anything anyway. When you order FWAS, the sedan’s suspension is stiffened beyond the G35 Sport’s standard settings, so any difference in handling could be due to the active steer system or the differences in suspension tuning. Or both.
One thing’s for sure. The suspension tuning on the G35 Sport, which is firmer than the suspension on the other three trim levels, is just too firm. The car’s new 40-percent-stiffer chassis allowed for such aggressive suspension tuning, and Infiniti’s chassis engineers took the bait. Order four-wheel active steer and the ride becomes downright teeth chattering. We expect Infiniti will be getting some hate mail from Sport owners in the rough-road states.
Nobody but BMW owners will complain about the G35′s handling. Front-end grip borders on the remarkable, while body control and balance are superb. At the track it circled the skid pad with 0.85g of lateral acceleration and slipped through the slalom at 67.1 mph — both a cat’s whisker under the performance of the BMW 330i.
Wheelbase is the same 112.2 inches as last year, but the front and rear tracks have been widened 0.7 inch in front and 0.9 inch in the rear. The four-wheel independent suspension also received some revision up front, with a new single-pivot double-wishbone design which replaces the previous model’s two lower links. Infiniti also staggered the car’s tire sizes for the first time (225/50R18 in front, 245/45R18 at the rear).
Our only dynamic-handling complaint has to do with the G’s steering. Ratio and feedback are right on, but the vehicle’s speed-sensitive steering assist needs a little sorting. When the vehicle speed is changing rapidly up and down — like when you’re charging a mountain road — changes in the assist are too radical and too slow to come, which can give the steering an artificial, video-game quality.
The brakes, on the other hand, are flawless. Sport models get larger 13-inch rotors front and back, and they stop this big sedan with little trouble. Fade is not an issue, pedal feel is excellent and stops from 60 mph take just 112 feet.
Designed and still built in Japan, the 2007 G35 is essentially the same size as last year’s model. Length is up half an inch, while the car is just 0.8 inch wider and 0.5 inch lower. Weight is up just 48 pounds.
It’s also the same size on the inside, with a few minor exceptions. Rear-seat headroom has been shaved a bit, while there’s a little more knee room thanks to a more careful carving of the door panels. Five still fit, but rear passengers shouldn’t be much taller than 6 feet. Another change was the loss of the G’s reclining rear seat, which was unique to the class. (We’re told it was dumped for weight savings.) Trunk space is unchanged at 13.5 cubic feet.
Perhaps the new G’s most meaningful improvement over its predecessor is its interior design, which has certainly taken several steps up in ergonomics, materials quality and ambience. Infiniti calls the décor “modern warmth.” Real aluminum trim is not only standard, it has been textured to resemble a fine, handmade Japanese paper called Washi. The effect works, but when combined with our tester car’s black leather, the décor is more Raider Nation than modern warmth. African Rosewood trim is optional on non-Sport models.
Option packages on our tester included the Premium Package, which added a sunroof; power tilt-and-telescoping steering wheel; memory for the driver seat, mirrors and steering wheel; Bluetooth; heated front seats; auto up-down rear windows; and a 10-speaker Bose audio system Infiniti calls “Studio On Wheels.” Our test car did not have the optional Intelligent Cruise Control, adaptive front lighting, a rearview monitor, or the navigation system which features XM NavTraffic with real-time traffic information.
It’s all wrapped in an evolutionary two-box design that’s more aggressive than the shape it replaces, but also a little fussy in its details. Misses include a contrived chrome lip spoiler and overwrought grille bars, made to look like the twisted blades of samurai swords. Hits include the dual chrome exhaust tips, lower greenhouse and the pull-type door handles. Love it or like it, it’s no doubt recognizable as the new G35, so it works.
It was the 2003 G35 sedan and coupe that made Infiniti a player in the luxury market. After 13 years of rocks and trees and retagged Maximas, Nissan’s luxury division found its stride. Last year, Infiniti sold 121,000 vehicles, 55,000 of which wore the G35 badge.
You’d have to be loopy to mess with that kind of success, and Infiniti hasn’t. The 2007 Infiniti G35 sedan, which will hit dealers in November (the 2008 G35 Coupe will reach dealers next summer), is very much the same car as its predecessor, only better. Think G35 2.0.
Infiniti h
of the vehicle. A neat trick, one that has earned the gang a few rowdy nights at the Grand Ol’ Opry, and one that will keep the G35 on the top rung of the midsize-performance-luxury-sedan market.as left the car’s size, layout and winning combination of luxury, performance and price essentially unchanged, while improving every aspect
The Dodge Viper – America’s Sports Car
460 horsepower and a sexy 3400 pound two seat body? Does this sound like a muscle car? You bet it does. Not many cars can safely be called America’s sports car. For good reason. The cars that could live up to that name are some pretty great automobiles. There’s the Chevrolet Corvette, of course. This car’s 50 year journey from its birth as a six cylinder novelty car to the all world high performance vehicle it is today is one of the auto industry’s great success stories. There’s also the Shelby Cobra. For six years, this incredible machine raced heads up against the world’s greatest racing cars and beat the pants off them. On every race course from Riverside to LeMans. Through the years, there have been a few others. From designers like Sydney Allard and Frank Curtis, who in the 50s managed to produce a few hand built road racers to Briggs Cunningham, whose Chrysler’s Hemi-powered sports cars were awesome blends of good looks, ingenuity, and true American horsepower.
But today, one car is a serious challenger for the right to claim the title of America’s sports car. Its name is Viper and just like another famous snake of a few years earlier, the Viper’s bite is deadly. The Dodge Viper was created for the sheer pleasure of fast driving. Its design omits a lot of things people have come to expect from Chrysler corporation like luxury accessories, lots of cargo space. This little car isn’t going to appeal to a lot of people but Chrysler doesn’t see the Viper as a mainstream automobile. This car was built for taking it to the limit Reflects Gary Lashinsky: “The Viper is an in your face, you wish you could be like me type car. I think there’s no car in the world, not a Ferrari, not a Porsche, not a Corvette, no exotic that says it more like Viper. It’s a true exotic but it truly is an American muscle car.”
The Viper Can Be Just About Anything It Wants To Be
With a curb weight of just 3400 pounds, a wheel base of 96 inches, and a 488 cubic inch V10 engine, the Viper can be just about anything it wants to be. It has the acceleration of a super stock dragster and the handling of a LeMans sports car. In fact, the Viper is capable of more flat out performance than most people would ever use. But the part of this car that everyone can appreciate is its sexy body. When it comes to styling, the Viper is a cut above anything else on the road. Tells Tony Darwin: “You can’t pull up to a light without somebody taking a picture or asking you questions and if you pull into a gas station you can plan on at least being there 10 minutes because you’re always having people come over asking you questions. It’s a really exciting experience.”
Viper History
The Viper struck the automotive world when it was least expected from a most unlikely source. In the 60s, Chrysler corporation had all but owned the muscle car marketplace but by the late 80s Chrysler was known for re-inventing tiles with the K car and the minivan. The Viper was a symbol of Chrysler’s new image of excitement and technology. Gary Lashinsky says: “The Viper changed the whole face of Chrysler corporation. It turned the whole program around and said, ‘This is what we are, innovation, styling, we’re ahead of everybody else’ and that’s what they have remained.” Building a car like a Viper was a bigger job than just tooling up a new family sedan. This car would have to be scratch built and to get the car they wanted, the Vipers’ designers would have to start at ground zero. And invest everything they needed, including the manufacturing process.
To build a car like the Viper, you had to go all the way to the top. Bob Lutz, Chrysler corporation’s President and chief operation officer, was the man most people credited with the vision to build this car. Lutz assembled his top people in engineering and design and outlined his vision for the Viper. Chrysler’s chief designer, Tom Gale, was tapped to create the Viper’s stop traffic looks. From engineering, Lutz chose Francois Castaing to be the man who would take the Viper from the drawing board to the road and to the race track. These three men, along with Carroll Shelby, the Viper’s spiritual father, began to define this car. Their ground rules were simple. They wanted to build a two seat roadster that offered the same gut level performance as the Cobras of the 60s.
But with every system updated with the best of today’s technology. And if that wasn’t a tall enough order, they intended to make a car they could sell for around $50,000. Clearly, the Viper was going to require some out of the box thinking. This little latter day Cobra would be laid out in the traditional front engine rear wheel drive configuration. The Viper’s body took on a low mean shape with a long hood and short rear deck, bulging fenders, 17 inch wheels, and huge tires. One of Tom Gale’s most striking design elements was the large opening behind the front fenders, which vented hot under hood air. The first prototype Viper was powered by a hybrid ten cylinder engine, created by grafting two extra cylinders onto a production 360 cubic inch V8.
The Viper aka the Second Coming of the Shelby Cobra
When the Viper concept car was shown to the world in 1988, many people viewed it as the second coming of the Shelby Cobra. Within three months of its unveiling, Chrysler assembled a group of people to make the Viper a reality. Their time line was short They wanted to bring Viper into the marketplace by 1992. This group, headed by Chrysler engineer Roy Sjoberg, became known as Team Viper Gary Lashinsky explains: “Dodge got a lot of their craftspeople together and said ‘We’re going to build this car and who wants to come into the program and be part of Team Viper?’ And everybody wanted to be involved because it’s such an exciting project. It was a lot different than building K cars and minivans.”
Team Viper had a huge job. They had less than three years to create the production version of this car. And all they had to work with was a great design, one prototype car, and a mandate from Bob Lutz. The second Viper prototype was made of fiberglass and its body began to take on more the styling elements that would appear on the production car. Like the sports car and the side exit exhaust pipes. For the production Vipers, a new body material called RTM fiberglass was selected, which saved weight and speeded up the manufacturing process. Underneath the new skin, the engineers designed a tubular steel space frame chassis, which offered exceptional stiffness. The Viper would ride on coil over shocks, huge 13 inch disc brakes at each corner. 275/40 front tires on 17 by 10 inch alloy wheels and steam roller sized 335/40 rear tires on 13 inch wide wheels on the rear meant this car was going to stick to the road.
To keep costs down, the Viper would use some of Dodge’s existing drive line components, including a new eight liter ten cylinder engine originally designed for pick-up truck duty. In truck form, this cast iron motor would be far too heavy for a car like the Viper, but they could save 100 pounds by casting the block and heads from aluminum alloy. Called the copperhead engine, the Viper’s V10 would measure an immense 488 cubic inches. With a four inch bore and a 3.88 inch stroke. Instead of overhead cams and other exotica, this engine was a conventional push rod motor with a 9.1 to 1 compression ratio. Induction was handed by a ram tuned multi port fuel injection system. Lightweight thin wall exhaust manifolds fed into the Viper’s specially designed side pipes, each containing their own low restriction catalytic converter. This blend of off the shelf parts, leading edge design and new millennium technology produced 400 horsepower at 5600 RPM. and 450 foot pounds of torque at 3600 RPM. “Aluminum head, it’s got the fuel injection of course. It’s just an absolutely fabulous car that idles smooth that runs hard that has a tremendous amounts of horsepower. With just a few modifications you could take it over 500 horse with virtually zero modifications to it. ” Says Tony Darwin.The engine and chassis were ready and as the final touches were applied to the body and interior, Viper was ready for the road. But you had to figure a car like this would make a big entrance
The 1992 Viper RT10
The Viper RT10 hit the showrooms in 1992 and it had evolved into an amazing automobile. Even though the production model looked similar to the original prototype not one single body part was the same. More importantly it was obviously to all who drove the RT10 that there wasn’t another American car in its league. Despite its cafe racer good looks, the Viper was a single purpose, no compromise performance machine and ti said so everywhere you looked. No luxury item were found in the Viper’s interior, except a set of comfortable leather covered bucket seats. There were no side windows or even outside door handles. There was a cloth top with zip in side curtains, but if you were looking for an automatic transmission or air conditioning, this wasn’t your ride. The Viper was a 100% manly man car.
When you sat in the Viper for the first time, it was clear that this was a car designed by and for high performance drivers. The retro black on white instruments were large and placed for easy reading and the pedals and hand controls were in perfect driving position. When you laid into the throttle, the big V10 and the long hood came on with a blast of power and torque that made you forge tall about yesterday’s classics. This car was a pure new millennium rush. Observes Pete Verbeck: “Until you really get it on a race track, you have no true clue of what this car is capable of. You can’t, and I don’t care what anyone says, you can’t do it on the street.” Pulling through a six speed gear box and a 307 limited slip rear end, the Viper RT10 could run zero to sixty in a shade over four seconds. Clicking off high twelve second quarter miles it tops off at 170 mph. Not bad for a 50 states legal car.
But as awesome as its performance was, the most impressive thing about this little car was its quality. And like all of its other features, quality was a part of the car’s design. Gary Lashinsky explains: “They built approximately 7-8 Vipers/day with a five day shift so it’s a low production number car. The car does not move to one space from another until it’s totally inspected and everything is assembled correctly and it is a really true hand built car.” By the end of model year 1992, 251 Viper RT10s had been produced. And even at the car fairly hefty $56,000 sticker price, the list of people waiting to put one in their driveway was starting to get lengthy.
The 1994 Viper RT 10
Staying with this good thing, Team Viper input just a few changes to the ’94 cars like embedding the radio antenna in the windshield This year, Team Viper cranked out over 1400 of the little jewels. And now in addition to the original red roaster, the RT10 was available in black. For the next couple years, Team Viper input several cosmetic changes to the RT10 like the addition of a traffic stopping shade of yellow to their color palette. But in a gesture of good will, the people who needed some extra ventilation, factory installed air conditioning became available in 1994. For 1995, for the first time, Viper drivers could come in out of the rain. There was now a removable hard top for the roadster, which fit all previous models as well. Going into 1996, the Dodge Viper was the wind in Chrysler’s sails and Chrysler was extending the Viper look and its hot rod reputation to all of its other cars. Far from being done, Team Viper had a couple new mind blowers waiting in the wings.
The 1996 Dodge Viper
Far from being old news, the Viper, now in its fifth year of the roadster body style was still selling every car Team Viper could make. But the people who built the Viper weren’t content if there was one more thing they could do to improve this car. For 1996, the chassis was improved for more stiffness. The suspension was refined for even more driver control and many of the car’s steel suspension pieces were prelaced with aluminum, saving nearly 60 pounds of unsprung weight. One of Viper’s most noticeable changes since its birth was the re-routing of the car’s exhaust from its ankle toasting side pipes to a more traditional rear exit. This not only saved a lot of pant legs, many owners said it made a tougher sounding exhaust panel. As if the car didn’t already get enough attention, this year Viper introduced three new color combinations: black with silver stripes, a very cunning young looking white with blue stripes, and the wildest one yet, screaming red with yellow wheels. The five spoke racing wheels from the prototype car became so popular that they were now Viper’s standard issue with new Michelin pilot series tires. But the beloved RT10 roadster was upstaged this year. And it took another Viper to do it. The car that would get all the ink in 1996 was the long awaited GTS coupe. This was the bombshell the Viper team had been hinting at for a couple years. And it looked an awful lot like one of America’s favorite road racers.
The GTS coupe was as much a tribute to Carroll Shelby as it was America’s newest super car. The coupe’s body was much more than just an RT10 with a non removable hard top. The front end received an extensive redesign with a wider grill opening, new driving lights, and NSCA style cold air duct. And louvers atop the front fenders From the doors back, everything was completely new, with a hatch back opening rear glass and a rear deck spoiler. A racing gas cap now mounted to the passenger sail panel and as a further reminder that the GTS was a street legal race car, the new roof had two bulges in just the right places to provide helmet clearance. Far from being just a cosmetic exercise, the GTS coupe was radically different under its skin. The V10 was extensively redesigned for the coupe, with lighter weight components and now producing 450 horsepower and 488 pounds of torque. Inside, the coupe featured electric windows, airbags and an upgraded sound system with a CD player.
The Viper GTS Coupe
With the introduction of the GTS coupe, Viper was easily the most noticeable car on the street. Continuing their practice of bringing improvements on line as soon as they were available, for the next two years Team Viper did little things like upgrading the leather interior and big things like replacing the exhaust manifolds with tubular headers for even more weight savings up front. By now it was getting hard to find ways to make this little almost perfect car better. But Team Viper had a pretty good source of test data; feedback from Viper owners. Pete Verbeck says: “it’s now at a level that it out drives me and I’ve been racing off shore power boats and automobiles for the last forty years of my life and I have to admit that this car still has surprises for me.” Viper did have one other source of R&D information: the race track.
There’s only one real way to claim the title of America’s sports car: you gotta go racing. After four years of making the most powerful production automobile in America, Viper was ready to bring all this power to the track. And they did. The results were predictably excellent. Viper won the 1997 FIA GT and manufacturer’s championships and even won the world’s most prestigious sports car race: the 24 hours LeMans. The car that took racing was a special GTS with a stiffer frame, a carbon fiber body, and an even more powerful V10, making upwards of 700 horsepower. Christened the GTSR, only a handful of these racing only Vipers were created and were only available to racing teams. But for everyone else, a special commemorative GTSR was built in 1998. Done in te traditional American racing white with blue stripes, the GTSR replica was outfitted with a carbon fiber rear wing and special BDS wheels. It was a classy way to celebrate the Viper’s racing success. But regardless of Viper’s road racing victories, there was no hiding the fact that this is a full on muscle car. And muscle cars feel right at home on the drag strip.
Tony Darwin brags about his baby: “We put a parachute, bars, and an off/on safety switch back here which is required by NHRA. We put a Mark Williams nine inch based Ford rim underneath it. We put oversizes rims. Side exhausts mainly because there wasn’t enough room underneath to put it in there. All the complete instruments in it. We have the aluminum Dodge-based prototype engine. Dart intake. Air conditioning, power steering, Holley carb with a nitrous kit on it. 250 to 650 horsepower. And, of course, this being beautiful, sunny Florida here, we have an oil core to keep things cool in summer so we can cruise Clearwater Beach without overheating.”
No doubt much of the Viper’s success is due, of course, to its good looks and incredible performance But almost from day 1, the Viper has enjoyed the active involvement of its owners in everything from quality assurance to guiding the car’s future design.
The 2001 and 2003 Vipers
The 2001 Viper continued the car’s tradition of hand built excellence. With continuous improvements, the driving force behind the car. The V10 did the impossible again, meeting even tougher emission standards and picking up a few horsepower at the same time. In 2001, a new bright yellow paint scheme made this car even more difficult tot ignore. But Viper owner didn’t buy it for its subtlety, its convenience, and certainly not for its gas mileage. People bought Vipers for how it made them feel. Gary Lashinsky explains: “Driving a Viper on the street makes you feel young. It makes no difference how old you are. You feel like you’re a teenager again with all that muscle.”
In 2003, Dodge rolled out a new Viper, showing the first full body styling change since the original RT10. But, once again, the real story is under the skin. There seems to be no limit to how much horsepower they can find inside the V10. In 2003, the engine measured 505 cubic inches and cranked out 525 horses, making it even more appropriate to call the Viper America’s true super car. Since the very first prototype, the Viper has been propelled by a single philosophy, no compromises. That philosophy didn’t just build an awesome automobile The Viper and its owners have a lover affair going that no other car can claim. Pete Verbeck says: “When I had Corvettes, anything they did to improve that car, I immediately sold that car and bought a new one. This car, I don’t feel that way about. From idle to screaming red headers, it’s a really amazing car.” So while some people say the days of the American muscle car are over, Viper owners are out there on the streets and the race tracks letting everyone know that the XX is still around. It’s just faster than it used to be. Nostalgia is nice. But for Viper drivers, these are the good ol’ days.
Infiniti G35 Sport Wagon
