Infiniti FX45 Reviews

"They can be driven much harder than traditional sport-utilities, with big, powerful brakes and firm, fully independent suspensions."

"Intended as a premium crossover SUV, the FX35/45 offers some of the best qualities of a car and an SUV all in one package and with little compromise."

"Equipped with Nissan's ubiquitous 3.5-liter V-6, which develops 280 horsepower in this iteration, the FX35's pace is surprisingly close to that of the FX45, which has a much more powerful 315-hp V-8."

"A low center of gravity and wide stance helped the FX45 immediately convey a sense of being planted to the road, so much so I boldly took curves and corners at speed."

"At 30.6 inches, the load height is higher than that in some other SUVs."

"This also means, of course, that for serious off-roading the FX45 is not worth a cheetah's furball. Or we assume it's not, since Infiniti didn't let us take it off-road during our day's drive."

"Note the broad price range here [between the FX35 and FX45], with some $10,000 variation. This means the FX competes both with competitors like the Acura MDX that only offer V6 power and are priced in the mid $30,000s as well as competitors with V8s, like BMW's X5 4.4i, which is in the $50,000 range."

"Yes, at 65.0 inches high, it does stand some seven inches taller than a Ford Taurus station wagon. And at 189.1 inches long, it is about eight inches shorter than the Taurus wagon. So the FX does possess proper SUV proportions."

"The FX45 can zip from 0 to 60 mph in slightly more than 6 seconds, while the Porsche Cayenne S takes nearly 0.2 second longer."

"The FX45 is (we are not making this up) a "Bionic Cheetah" We assume that Bionic Cheetah beat out "Mechanical Marsupial," which would have been our choice."

"The cabin remains quiet, but we found ourselves rolling the rear window down for no other reason than to hear the V8's exhaust note."

"Like any self-respecting, SUV-hating group of automotive journalists, we were all set to hate both the Infiniti FX35 and the more powerful FX45. Then we drove them."