Motoring | Test Drives

Infiniti QX 56 - Week 4

The QX is a super-comfy transportation device. But that also means the driver remains completely detached from the road

By Amit Benjamin, Editor, wheels
Published: 12:12 November 25, 2012

Image Credit: Grace Paras/ANM
The boffins paid special attention to aerodynamics — as much as they could in a car with the proportions of a small house — and even the side mirrors are designed to slice through the air efficiently to reduce wind noise.

Ask a petrolhead about their favourite cars, and they’ll rattle off a list that will include things like the Porsche GT3 RS. They’ll ramble on about driving sensation and how important it is to preserve the purity of the man-machine interface.

Sensory deprivation in a car is a bad thing — it renders them mere transportation devices, and no petrolhead will ever publicly admit to liking one. The QX 56 would be pretty low down a petrolhead’s favourite-cars list then. It’s one of the softest and most undramatic cars on sale today.

Sure, it’s a body-on-frame construction, but you’d be hard-pressed to tell; the ride is serene and surprisingly, even those huge wheels don’t seem to have an adverse effect. The QX 56’s predecessor was based on the crude Nissan Armada, and it showed inside.

The plastics were scratchy and the general aura was low-rent. But this time it shares a platform with the much-refined Nissan Patrol, and that means that the interior is slathered with high-quality materials, the leather is posh and the wood trim is real stuff.

The 5.6-litre V8, which comes from the M 56 saloon, develops the same 560Nm of torque as the saloon, but they are achieved 400 revs earlier, which makes the QX slightly more tractable. It’s incredibly quiet in there too, with just a hint of V8 rumble in the distance.

The boffins paid special attention to aerodynamics — as much as they could in a car with the proportions of a small house — and even the side mirrors are designed to slice through the air efficiently to reduce wind noise.

Facts

Driven by: Amit

Start mileage: 11,576km

Recent cost: Fuel

Average fuel economy: 19.5 litres-per-100km

Highs: Quiet cabin, high-quality materials and finish

Lows: Isolated driving experience