LuxuryCarMagazine En Luxury Car Review and News
The “L” after the “Q70” on the car you see hear speaks volumes. Yes, L does stand for “long”; the Q70 is longer, by 186 millimetres than its non-L cousin; in fact, the only vehicle in Infiniti’s line-up longer than the Q70L is the gargantuan QX80 SUV, and the difference between those two is actually smaller than the length difference between the Q70L and Q70.
Review Overview
Styling - 80%
Driving Pleasure - 85%
Performance - 85%
Driving Comfort - 95%
Interior Space - 95%
Fuel Economy - 65%
Winter - 95%
86%
Rear legroom, meanwhile, improves by 143 mm (for a total of 1,062) over the Q70; there’s also more rear legroom in the Q70L than there is in the second row of the QX60, a crossover that seats seven.
But more on that in a bit.
The “L” is also the only model that gets V8 power—it comes as standard—as you only get the 3.7 litre V6 if you go with the Q70. And this is not just any V8. You’ll likely recognize the “5.6” designation on the car’s fenders; it’s the same thing you’ll see on the massive flanks of the full-size Nissan Titan pickup, denoting the size of the VK56DE engine within. We’ve never seen them here, but the Nissan Patrol SUV has worked in the world’s hottest climes for years, with VK56DE power.
So the Q70L’s motor is durable.
The Nissan GT-R GT1 race car, and the Altima pounding the pavement in the Australian V8 Supercars Championship? Yep, VK56DEs.
So it’s powerful, too.
How powerful? How does 416 horsepower and 414 lb.-ft. of torque sound? Almost muscle car gruff, that’s how. It’s a little surprising, considering the Q70L is really a car built to whisk its occupants about in supreme comfort, not setting off car alarms in the mall parkade.
However, if you do fancy a bit of fun, then the big Infiniti is happy to oblige; a properly-sorted AWD system helps shrink the car down a little, making it feel more agile through the twisties. Power, meanwhile, is not a problem and the Q70L should have little trouble making a name for itself on the highway, even if it was the autobahn.
You’ll want to keep the control wheel mounted just below the shifter in “normal” or “sport” mode, however; “eco” mode makes it feel like you’re pushing down on a sponge when accelerating, with precious little forward progress to match your input. Rare is it that an eco mode feels this sluggish, but that it does. The fact that we could only get it to about 14L/100 km doesn’t help the situation. Not the most efficient of cars, this.
Then again, there’s always a Hybrid version, if you can do without the long wheelbase.
Stylistically, while it’s handsome, I wouldn’t say that it’s spectacular to look at. Then again, that could be due both to a bias of mine, as well as the fact that some of the other models in Infiniti’s line-up—the QX80, QX70, Q60 Coupe—are just so durn distinctive.
Then again, I actually had someone stop me, exclaiming, simply, “what a gorgeous car”. I’ve driven some real head-turners in my day that haven’t garnered that kind of response.
There are some nice touches: the flares over the front fenders, for example, and the aggressively-sloping roofline recalls the Audi A7. Angular headlamps, big, 20-inch wheels—it’s all good. Meanwhile, the Hermosa Blue paintjob—our car’s only option—is probably the colour I’d have.
Inside, it’s fantastic. The seats are incredibly plush, cushy and supportive (and adjustable 10-ways up front), the gauge cluster is clear and informative, and the metal bezels around the audio and climate controls are welcome additions, as is the analogue clock sitting atop the centre stack–fantastic.
An 8 in. touchscreen serves as the portal to all your infotainment and navigation needs. While it’s responsive and the display is clear, the somewhat cartoonish graphics are look a little long in the tooth and are at-odds with the class displayed elsewhere in the cabin.
Having said all that, in a long-wheelbase luxury sedan like this, the back seats are almost as important as those up-front, and those occupants, well, do they really care if the infotainment screen is a little out-of-date?
The additional rear legroom is good, because head room remains pretty much the same and you’ll want to slouch just a little lower in the rear seat in order to really enjoy the extra room you have back there. The rear seats aren’t adjustable, however, nor is there any form of massage feature. They can be heated, but not cooled, which brings me to a bit of a sticking point: yes, these features (cooled/reclining/massaging) rear seats may seem extremely superfluous, but this is a long-wheelbase, special edition car. These are the kinds of things you’d expect to see back here.
Then again, with a $68,400 base MSRP, the Q70L undercuts V8-powered, non-LWB models like the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and or BMW 5 Series.
And just look at the standard features: power folding mirrors, trunk-close assist, soft-close rear doors, door handle courtesy lights, dual-zone climate control (because, you know, your driver has to be comfortable, too), suede headliner, Bose 5.1 sound, satellite radio, iPod integration, power tilt and telescopic wheel, hard-drive navigation system with real-time traffic info, Around View monitor (extremely helpful when parking a car as big as this), back-up collision intervention, adaptive cruise—the list goes on and on, and there’s hardly anything to add. Seriously; with the exception of special paint and a few accessories like a trunk net or interior mood lighting, there are no option packages to choose from.
It all combines to make the buying process that much easier.
Actually, it’s not that hard to start off with because the Q70L is such a fantastic proposition—value-wise, performance-wise, luxury-wise—that it should really sell itself. Yes, Infiniti may not be the first name that jumps to mind when it comes to expensive people-moving, but that could be because it’s not all that expensive when you consider its competition. I wonder if the fact that it’s priced so competitively keeps it off the radar of the super-sedan buyer? I hope for their sake that it doesn’t, because they’d be missing out on a real gem of an entrant into the segment.
