Infiniti hits one out of the park with 2019 QX50
As I was driving through the wine country of the Niagara peninsula a week or so ago, at the wheel of the all-new five-passenger Infiniti QX50 luxury mid-size SUV, which is one fine automobile, let me tell you, I was thinking of a time many years ago when I was a kid and lived around there.
One summer, I was a caddie at a golf club in St. David’s, Ont. It was beside a vineyard and when the people who’d hired me to carry their clubs were waiting to tee off, I’d wander over to the fence and grab a handful of grapes. There is nothing sweeter in the world than eating a grape right off the vine.
Unlike today, when you come across places in Niagara-on-the-Lake such as Stratus Vineyards, which is famous for its Stratus Petit Verdot 2007 and other fine wines, Niagara in the 1950s and ’60s was not known as an oenophile’s paradise.
One night in 1967, my father, who was always A Proud Canadian, took us all out for dinner at a restaurant in what was then the just-finished and brandspanking-new TD Centre in downtown Toronto.
“We’d like some wine,” he told the waiter, who then sent over the sommelier.
“We have some fine wines from France, and California, and Italy, and South Africa,” the guy said, to which my old man replied: “What about some fine wines from Canada? This is Centennial Year and we want to celebrate the country.”
“Er, I don’t believe there are any good wines made in Canada,” the guy stammered, which was like waving a red cape in front of a bull. My father, the late J.A. (Al) McDonald, who was a big guy, looked at this pipsqueak and said: “We are over here from Niagara Falls. Brights Wines is a Niagara Falls company. They make wine. We’ll have some of that.”
“We don’t have any Brights wine,” the guy said, digging himself even further into his hole. I was starting to feel sorry for him because I knew what was coming. It was like somebody taking a knife to a gunfight. He was about to get it right between the eyes.
“There is an LCBO a block down, on the corner,” said my father, who knew those things. “It is still open. They have Brights Wines there. Go buy some.” And before the guy could answer, my father continued: “This restaurant is in Canada and it should serve Canadian wines.”
So the poor sommelier left and returned half an hour later with two bottles of Brights wine — one red, one white. He very carefully unscrewed the cap on the bottle of red (no corks on Brights wines in those days) and handed it to my father, who sniffed it and nodded as if he knew what he was doing. Then the fellow poured an ounce into a wine glass so that my dad could breathe it in and then swish it around in his mouth, which he did. I held my breath because, knowing my father, he might well have told the fellow to take it back to the LCBO and get another bottle. But he didn’t.
“That’s the ticket,” he said, smiling, and everybody was happy for the rest of the meal — except maybe the sommelier, who did brighten up considerably later, though, when the old man handed him a sizable tip.
Now, turning to the task at hand, which is telling you about this wonderful car (which we drove around what is now world-famous Niagara wine country), I used to think the cat’s meow, when you got right into the technology of any new vehicle, was the ability to open the trunk, or the lift gate, with your key fob. You know, when you click it twice and, like magic, the back of the vehicle opens right up?
With the QX50, you don’t even have to do that anymore. With any new car launch, there is always something that catches your eye and makes an impression. There is a lot that is new — even unique — about this Infiniti, but the fact that the lift gate is motion-activated — stick your foot under the rear bumper and, voila! the lift gate opens — was one of the things that made me sit up and take notice.
I mean, I don’t know about you, but if I have a couple of cases of beer, or an armload of groceries, and I get to the car and I have to put everything down in order to get my fob out of my pocket, it can be a pain — even though the double-click then gets the job done quickly. Now, with this front-engine Infiniti QX50, I just have to wave my foot under the back of the car and seconds later I’m depositing my purchases and moving on to the next task.
The other big attraction of this car, for me, is the 2.0-litre turbocharged variable compression ratio engine. This is a work of genius. I’ve actually written about this engine before because I interviewed Christian Meunier, vice-president of Infiniti’s global division, about it at last year’s Los Angeles Auto Show. This is the first car in the Nissan/Infiniti lineup to actually feature it, though.
Nissan, which is Infiniti’s parent company, worked on this concept for 20 years before solving what everybody thought was an unsolvable puzzle: how can you get seriously good fuel mileage out of an engine that can also go from zero to 100 km/h in just a tick more than six seconds (6.3, to be exact)? Or, how can you have an engine with the power of a six-cylinder car and the fuel mileage of a four-cylinder?
The variable compression ratio engine is the solution.
Francois Bancon, vicepresident, product and programs for Infiniti, explained how it works: a multi-link system raises or lowers the pistons’ reach to transform the compression ratio. High compression ratios aid efficiency; low ratios enable greater power and torque. The VC-Turbo offers any compression ratio between 8:1 (for performance) and 14:1 (for efficiency).
The engine delivers 268 horsepower and 280 lbs.ft. of torque. Fuel economy for this all-wheel-drive vehicle is reported to be 9.0 L/100 kilometres, but you have to burn premium. The continuously variable transmission (CVT) delivers the power.
The 1,679-mm-tall QX50 (it’s 4,693 millimetres long and 1,903 mm wide) is a goodlooking car (love those 20-inch wheels), both outside and in. It’s aerodynamically improved from the previous QX50, and I particularly like the clamshell hood design because when I sit behind the wheel, the hood dips away and it seems as if I’m looking almost straight down on the road.
The cockpit is comfortable and functional. The infotainment and navigation systems (there are two screens) and driving modes (there are four of those) are relatively easy to program and activate, and although they are not complex, you will still have to take your eyes off the road to find things — although not really any longer than you would in any other vehicle.
My suggestion when it comes to pre-set radio stations, though, is to program them before you hit the road so you’re not hunting and pecking around while trying to stay off the sidewalk.
The back seats — and, yes, I actually got in and out of the rear seats in the QX50 (and that’s something I often forget to do on these drives) — are roomy and comfy. I’m a tall fellow and there’s great legroom back there. And the rear seats can be moved forward to increase cargo space (from 880 litres to 1,048 litres), or pushed down flat, to increase space even more (1,822 litres), which is always a plus in my books, particularly if you’re going to Rona or to play 18 holes at Glen Abbey (which you’d better do before long because, one way or another, ClubLink is going to sell it for houses).
While we’re talking about the back of the SUV, you will find there is no spare tire back there — or under the floor. The wheels are covered by run-flat tires, so there’s no need for a spare (although if you do damage a tire, you will have to stop and get it repaired, pronto).
Now, I personally found the cabin to be quiet — even though my co-driver and I were talking up a storm much of the time. I always get a kick out of automakers emphasizing this silence as a selling feature because it is rarely ever quiet in a car: People are always having conversations or music is playing. The entertainment system, for instance, has a Bose sound system with 16 speakers. Try talking over that!
After a mid-morning stop on our drive, I took over (my co-driver was at the wheel for the first leg). I floored it from a stop sign and I could feel the transformation of that variable compression ratio engine. While we had been cruisecontrolling along, saving fuel, the engine sensed the pressure of the accelerator and — wham! — it was like an afterburner had kicked in. I was impressed.
And then I hit the brakes, which is something else I like to do because you never know when you will be in a panic situation in any vehicle and it’s nice to know how the car will react. The QX50 brakes passed with flying colours.
Something else I always chuckle about when I finish one of these drives is when I’m asked by one of my friends, or one of my kids, “How does it handle?” I don’t know the exact percentage, but the vast majority of my driving time is spent going in a straight line on expressways and I suspect the same can be said for just about everybody. As I always say, when some manufacturer insists in taking us off-road, the last place I am going to take a brand-new luxury vehicle like this Infiniti is into a river. I feel the same way about handling and steering.
To really put a vehicle through its handling paces, you would have to take it out to Canadian Tire Motorsport Park and really have a go — and most people are never going to do that. So as long as the car turns when I turn the wheel, and it doesn’t tip over if I should ever have to swerve to either miss somebody or get out of the way, I’m happy. So I can confidently say that the QX50 performs flawlessly in such situations.
The Infiniti QX50, which is manufactured in Mexico, features the manufacturer’s patented ProPilot Assist technology, in which all you have to do is push a little blue button on the console and the technology will take over and do the steering for you. You have to keep your hands on the wheel, though, but you really don’t have to drive — at least while you are on roads with clear markings on either side, such as highways. In order for ProPilot Assist to operate properly, the road has to be clear and the lines visible. This means this won’t work in the winter, or on two-lane gravel roads.
Having said that, this technology is meant to be a driver’s aid; to add to the enjoyment of driving while leaving the driver — you — in charge. It is a step removed from what we like to think of as fully autonomous driving. Think of pilots in a jetliner: they take the plane off, but once it’s 50 feet in the air, the computers take over, and it’s vice-versa on landing. If you want, that’s how the ProPilot Assist technology can work in your car. You get the car going and then let the technology drive. Come to think of it, perhaps that’s where the word “ProPilot” comes from …
Most of us — not many of us, most — live in cities with expressways and we spend a lot of time in heavy traffic, or traffic jams. With ProPilot Assist, we can set the cruise control and the distance to the car ahead and let the technology do the braking and accelerating. This is a wonderful safety feature and is available on all models in the Q50 lineup.
The car starts at $44,490 for what’s called the Luxe model and this gets you a panoramic moon roof (almost the whole top of the car), LED headlights, remote starter (great in winter), heated seats (ditto) and heated steering wheel (ditto x2) plus the previously mentioned ProPilot Assist. You can then move up through the Essential model ($48,990), to the Pro-Active ($52,990), to the Sensory ($56,490) to the model I drove, the Autograph, which goes for $57,990 and includes additional features such as navigation, leather seats, parking sensors, aroundview monitor, suede-covered centre consul and all sorts of other things you’ll find either in a QX50 brochure or online.
The QX50 is at dealerships now and is well worth a look. As Meunier, the Infiniti veep, said: “The 2019 QX50 is the most important vehicle we have ever launched, and it embodies everything the brand stands for: beautiful design, advanced technology and empowering performance. As a luxury, mid-size SUV, it’s the right vehicle at the right time in one of the world’s fastestgrowing segments.”
I couldn’t have said that better myself.