2011 Infiniti M56 - Road Test - Car and Driver
After 21 years on the market and an amount of cash spent on advertising to at least equal this season’s Yankees payroll, Nissan’s upscale brand is still often misspelled with a “y. ” One day last March, the Los Angeles Craigslist website had 79... Poor Infiniti. Each of those last three brands outsells Infiniti by more than two to one. But that last M , bobtailed and chiseled and called the Nissan Fuga in Japan (where Infiniti doesn’t exist), couldn’t really move the needle. Carrying a $50,000 ticket, the V-8 Infiniti M45 drove well—witness comparison-test victories in ’05 and ’06 —but it had the plain interior of, well, a Nissan. The M, in both V-6 and V-8 dress, currently accounts for just 10 percent of Infiniti sales. Where is Infiniti headed in its quest for identity and success. M37 prices hardly budge: The entry point rises only $450, to $47,115 for the base M37 equipped with a 330-hp, 3. 7-liter V-6 from the Nissan 370Z. The car being pummeled here is a $64,065, rear-drive, V-8–equipped M56 (all-wheel drive is available). It’s the base $58,415 M56—that’s $5400 more than last year, in part because navigation is now standard—fitted with the $3650 Sport package and the $2000 Sport Touring package (more about those forthwith). Source: www.caranddriver.com
