Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa May 2013 | Page 73

MOTOR TALK

BY RUSSELL BENNETT

Drive Test: Infiniti EX37
EXemplary?
S

o, how do you respond when you’re
cruising at a steady 130kph, and an Audi
A4 2.0 TFSI that you just passed at the
side of the road a few kms back, with one of the
occupants relieving themselves in the dry West
Coast scrub, comes blasting by at almost 200?
OK, so perhaps I’m not the most grown up
man ever. But my right foot wavered for a
couple of seconds not due to an internal legal
struggle, but purely because I was in an SUV
and not a sports car. Nevertheless, inevitably,
the hammer goes down and the chase is on!

A Proper Sporty SUV
In these situations, this Infiniti EX37 feels like just
the right tool for the job. The 370Z-sourced 3.7litre naturally aspirated V6 responds immediately
and with plenty of enthusiasm. In this form the
motor might not have the crazy 7000rpm-plus
rush that it does in that definitive Japanese sports
car, but it sounds much nicer. A deep, throaty and
irrepressible roar spews forth from the twin bigbore tailpipes, the rear end of this spaceship-like
SUV squats convincingly, and the entire mass is
propelled urgently up the road in pursuit.
There’s enough power on tap here to
surprisingly easily stabilise the growing gap
between Audi and Inf initi and then start
to rapidly erode the spaces between his rear
bumper and my sleek but imposing front end.
A puff of smoke from the exhaust shows the
downshift and the turbo girding its loins for

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battle, but the far lither and more slippery A4
can’t pull away from the big-hearted grunt on
offer by the 3.7-litre naturally-aspirated V6
again, well over the 200km/h mark.

Howling Beyond 200
This car does without much of the trickery of
the big flagship, the FX 50 S. It has standard
fixed-rate dampers for instance, and doesn’t
have any rear-steering arrangement. And yet,
it still manages to feel truly special.
The sleek proportions of the exterior are to my
eye the closest anyone has ever come to making
a sporty-looking SUV, beasts like the X6
included. You feel like you’re sitting quite high,
as you should in a car of this nature, until you
park up alongside a conventional SUV and note
just how chopped the Infiniti’s roofline looks in
comparison. Like a Hot Rod.
The interior is, very much like a Lexus, a
peculiar blend of recognisable Nissan parts
with a substantial veil of upmarket surfacing
covering every inch. Our test car didn’t come
with the family-unfriendly white leather
pictured in the press images, instead favouring
a very smooth chocolate-brown, while the
gadget-count which comes standard on this
model is comprehensive.

Old-School Charm, New Age Kit
Yet despite all of the, the EX37 really surprises
by being a car you can actually connect with
when you’re for instance chasing an A4 down
the West Coast Road. You can feel there’s
some weight being controlled, but it never
feels hippo-like or like you’re taming freighttrain levels of momentum. The large alloys do
occasionally send a bit of a shimmer through the
suspension reminding you that they represent a
fair deal of unsprung weight, but it never feels
scrappy or all about to come apart on you.
Allied to that vocal 235kW V6 this excellent
chassis allows the EX to shrug off it’s almost1900kg kerb weight when you want it to, with
the motor punching hard up the road (0-100kph
in 6.4s, according to the manufacturer) and
pulling with enthusiasm all the way round to
the 240km/h top speed.
As you may have already gathered, I quite
liked the EX37. In fact, I just about loved it.
In common with the madcap but awesome
FX 50 S tested last year, the EX37 seems to have
all the ingredients right, and it actually manages
to remind you of why you love driving, and
driving fast specifically. The noise is great, the
dynamics involving, the punch ample, and it’s all
wrapped in a lovely cocoon of luxury which on
the surface at least doesn’t give much away to
the German giants of this space.

May 2013 SA Real Estate Investor

71