German Car Zone

Head for the Coast, Not the Hills


The sign says, "Malibu: 27 miles of Scenic Beauty." Sounds good; let's fire up this new 2009 Infiniti G37 S Convertible and have a go, as the snooty Brits like to say. Yes, the white one. We know Malibu isn't in Florida. That would be Miami you're thinking of. We can't help it — we just test them here at Inside Line, so we usually don't get to choose the color.

We've chosen the 2009 Infiniti G37 S Convertible for this day of Malibu-ing for two reasons: 1) This is a full test of the 2009 Infiniti G37 S Convertible, so bringing it along seemed to make sense; and 2) With its retractable hardtop, this is the perfect car for a run in and out of the 'Bu — a real coupe for the city and curvy stretches and a convertible for the coastal runs.

There are two ways to get to Malibu from our Santa Monica office. You can pick the logjam that is the Los Angeles freeway system or take the scenic Pacific Coast Highway. That's right baby, the world famous PCH. California Highway 1. The Freeway to the Beach Houses of the Stars. The world's most famous coast road.

Easy choice, right? Like choosing between Uma and Oprah. Cold beer and warm beer. Work or play. Duh. We choose Uma playing with a cold beer. But first we need to drop the top.

Drop the Top

And the top is the story of this car. Less than 30 seconds is all it takes to transform what is basically a G37 hardtop (no B-pillar or fixed side glass) into a wide-mouth convertible. Just push the button on the center console and hold. All the work is done by a team of electric motors that hum while they work, peeling back the car's roof from the windshield header, splitting it into three evenly sized pieces and stacking it clamshell-style in the car's trunk.

It's a true marvel of engineering, with countless hinges, double-hinges and pulleys, but unlike Lexus, which does its retractable hardtop for the SC 430 in house, Nissan has had its system engineered in Germany by Karmann. It uses steel roof panels and is installed on a sub-assembly line at Nissan's plant in Tochigi, Japan, the same facility that produces the G37 coupe and sedan.

But there's more to the G's transformation from coupe to convertible than just the roof and its complex mechanism. Infiniti reinforced the car's A-pillar, door sills and overall body structure. Oh, and dual pop-up anti-rollover bars deploy if the machine's big brain thinks it's heading for the upside-down. According to Larry Dominique, Nissan North America's vice president of product planning, the active roll bars were an aesthetic choice: "They kept us from having to put in an ugly hoop brace."

Essentially everything from the A-pillar back is new. "There's a lot going on in the back of this vehicle," Dominique tells us. "At the time the coupe was designed, we did not engineer it to be a convertible." But thanks to extreme packaging efforts by Infiniti, which include a new more compact rear suspension to make room for the folded top, the G37 Convertible looks right top up or top down. Overall length and deck-lid height are up so slightly, you'd have to bust out a micrometer to notice.

Sacrifices? Just one: the entire trunk. Top up, it fits two golf bags. Top down, you're lucky to toss a T-shirt back there. Suddenly that backseat is the trunk. Don't worry, it doesn't fit people anyway.

PCH North
With the top dropped, we turn north on PCH at the bottom of the famous California Street incline. Trust us, you've seen it in movies. Just to the south is the Santa Monica Pier, lit golden by the approaching sunset over the Pacific. Ahead are the cliff-top mansions and rehab centers fancied by the Hollywood set. These days the paparazzi outnumber the surfers.

Four lanes wide and glass-top smooth, PCH winds along the beaches past Sunset Boulevard and the landmark restaurant, Gladstone's. This is where it really starts getting good. This is the road convertibles are made for, and the reason Ferrari has one called the California. And it's in this environment that the G37 Sport Convertible is best.

Our car wears both the optional premium and tech packages but goes without GPS navigation. It's also equipped with the seven-speed automatic, but the six-speed manual is available. Prices haven't been set yet, but we're told the range will be from the mid-$40s to the mid-$50s. Our Sport would top $50,000, easy.


Full Story and Video: Edmunds Inside Line - 2009 Infiniti G37 S Convertible Full Test and Video


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