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April 3, 2008 http://www.thecarconnection.com/fullreview/infiniti_g20_1999

  Bob Plunkett
EditorBob Plunkett

NEW YORK — Glimmering in spotlights as it twirled on a turntable at the New York International Auto Show, the G20, the compact luxosedan from Nissan's Infiniti division, appeared sleek and sophisticated in style yet decidedly Japanese in execution and, presumably, vaguely unremarkable in action.

That rather bland yet still pleasing outward appearance of the sedan fails to convey its active personality as honed on European racetracks. Fact is, the G20 can run circles around most other Japanese sedans and it actually competes favorably against some pricey compact sedans from Europe.

A week of experience driving the touring version, G20t, proved that point and revealed that Infiniti's designers have concocted an impressive car that stands at the entry point to the upscale line.

The look of the G20 still evokes images of its predecessor, which was deleted from memory two years ago, and this version has some things in common with that car: the same wheelbase of 100.4 inches, the same front-wheel-drive format, and evolutions of the same twin-cam four-cylinder powerplant with both automatic and manual transmission options. The 1999 edition shares its platform with the European Nissan Primera, with chassis and suspension engineering developed at Nissan's technical center in Japan and the European counterpart in England.

 

Running Nurburgrings around the competition

To hone that chassis, engineers shifted to temporary quarters in Germany and ran more than 100,000 miles of rigorous tests through the 176 turns of a 14-mile course at the Nurburgring racetrack. That experience took a basic independent suspension system with multi-link front members and a quasi-multi-link setup in back and made it feel as if it had made its home on the German track.

The front multi-link setup is nothing new to Nissan. The unique "multi-link beam" in back has been adopted on the American Maxima and Sentra for some time, too. This is the first time it's made it into the G20. The multi-link beam combines a torsion-beam axle with a short lateral link that prevents suspension jacking, which smooths out ride quality a bit from a conventional-beam axle. While it's not superior to the former G20's four-link setup, it's an acceptable compromise that saves Nissan a bunch of money in design and assembly.

NEW YORK — Glimmering in spotlights as it twirled on a turntable at the New York International Auto Show, the G20, the compact luxosedan from Nissan's Infiniti division, appeared sleek and sophisticated in style yet decidedly Japanese in execution and, presumably, vaguely unremarkable in action. That rather bland yet still pleasing outward appearance of the sedan fails to convey its active personality as honed on European racetracks. Fact is, the G20 can run circles around most other Japanese sedans and it actually competes favorably against some pricey compact sedans from Europe. A week of experience driving the touring version, G20t, proved that point and revealed that Infiniti's designers have concocted an impressive car that stands at the entry point to the upscale line. The look of the G20 still evokes images of its predecessor, which was deleted from memory two years ago, and this version has some things in common with that car: the same wheelbase of 100.4 inches, the same front-wheel-drive format, and evolutions of the same twin-cam four-cylinder powerplant with both automatic and manual transmission options. The 1999 edition shares its platform with the European Nissan Primera, with chassis and suspension engineering developed at Nissan's technical center in Japan and the European counterpart in England.   Running Nurburgrings around the competition To hone that chassis, engineers shifted to temporary quarters in Germany and ran more than 100,000 miles of rigorous tests through the 176 turns of a 14-mile course at the Nurburgring racetrack. That experience took a basic independent suspension system with multi-link front members and a quasi-multi-link setup in back and made it feel as if it had made its home on the German track. The front multi-link setup is nothing new to Nissan. The unique "multi-link beam" in back has been adopted on the American Maxima and Sentra for some time, too. This is the first time it's made it into the G20. The multi-link beam combines a torsion-beam axle with a short lateral link that prevents suspension jacking, which smooths out ride quality a bit from a conventional-beam axle. While it's not superior to the former G20's four-link setup, it's an acceptable compromise that saves Nissan a bunch of money in design and assembly. NEW YORK — Glimmering in spotlights as it twirled on a turntable at the New York International Auto Show , the G20, the compact luxosedan from Nissan's Infiniti division, appeared sleek and sophisticated in style yet decidedly Japanese in execution and, presumably, vaguely ...