Every so often a car comes around that totally changes the direction of the future landscape in car styling. We recently saw this with the introduction of the 2011 Hyundai Sonata. It totally changed how we look at the $20k sedan and put the other car makers on alert that edgy styling and family sedans can be synonymous. This week’s Car of the Week is also one of these cars. For this week’s choice, I decided to take a look back at the sport touring coupes available in the 2003 model year. 2003 first sticks out for me because of my 2003 Acura CL Type-S, but if you look at a slide show of all the coupes available in that model year, you notice that one coupe in particular stands out. This week’s Car of the Week is:
2003 Infiniti G35 Coupe
Why?
Image courtesy of CarandDriver.com
The introduction of the Infiniti G35 Coupe meant the introduction of a sport touring coupe that departed from the “long” coupe styling that we had long been accustomed to (Oops, did I do that?!) You know the styling I’m talking about, long wheelbase, long doors and a long trunk. Then came the G35. Once you took a look at it, you thought you were looking at a straight up sports car (or was that only me?) The move to the shorter body length, which Nissan calls its “Front Midship” platform, changed how the engine and other components would be located within the car. With all of this done it still has usable rear seats and some trunk room. The trunk is compromised a bit when compared with a “long” coupe at 7.8 cu. ft. vs. the Acura CL’s 13.6 cu. ft., but I’ll make that sacrifice any day for the sleek styling of the G35.
About the Car
The 2003 Infiniti G35 Coupe was available with only engine, the legendary, music-to-our-ears Nissan VQ35. There are different versions of the VQ35 offered among the various Nissan/Infiniti models, but the one used in the G35 generates 280 hp and 270 lb-ft of torque. The G35 Coupe was available in either automatic or manual transmission and only in a rear wheel drive configuration. The “Front Midship” platform provided for improved handling through better front to back weight distribution.
The 2003 Infiniti G35 Coupe clearly changed how coupes were going to be styled going forward. Cars like the Audi A5 and Honda Accord Coupe have clearly followed suit. It took years for these and other car makers to catch up. Unfortunately, still others got left in the dust (like the Acura CL and Toyota Solara.)
Other Resources
Edmunds.com Features and Specifications page
Wikipedia – Infiniti G-series (to be taken with a grain of salt, of course)
G35club.org owners club
Road & Track road test of the G35 coupe
Chuck can be followed on Twitter @ChuckWhatTheF where he tweets about cars and other things “dudebros” are talking about.
Some photos in this article are freely sourced from Google. If you take issue with the usage of any image, please contact us and we will remove it.
The Audi brand was quickly being forgotten as we entered the 1990s. The Car and Driver “10-Best” winning brand of the 1980s (namely the Audi 5000) became a dated brand in the early 90s. This was compounded with the unintended acceleration issues and lawsuits overshadowing the Audi name. Audi had not come up with anything for years to preserve its place as a prominent German luxury brand. It looked like time was standing still for the German automaker.
The 1986 Acura Legend was the flagship model for the newly debuted Acura brand. This Legend gave birth to the Japanese luxury car industry and started pushing the luxury car envelope about four years before Toyota and Nissan introduced their answers with Lexus and Infiniti respectively. Their response was so slow it appeared that they didn’t hit the drawing board until this Legend was released.