TMW ROAD TEST - The New Infiniti Q30, a car that deserves to succeed in an ever growing premium sector.

The All-New, or is it, Infiniti Q30, gives the impression that the car you are driving is a totally new car from Infiniti, The luxury arm of Nissan, but don't be fooled, the Q30 is heavily based on the Mercedes A-Class, and that's not a problem for this car, as they have moved the goal posts, and made a good car, from Mercedes, into a great car from Infiniti.

And it does not stop there, they have not taken the easy route and allowed Mercedes-Benz to produce this car, as they could well have done, but they have invested a significant amount of money and expanded the Sunderland plant that makes a number of Nissan cars, for the UK and export, and have a purpose built expansion to build the Q30 and upcoming QX30 Active Compact.

The sector that this new car enters is a very hotly contested one, you have the entry level cars from BMW (1-Series), Mercedes (A-Class), Audi (A1), Lexus (CT), and others like the Volvo V40 and the likes of the Mini Cooper, so the Q30 has to offer something more, to tempt the buyers to the brand, a brand that currently lacks the sales numbers of it's competitors, but is doing all it can to rectify that.

On first glance you see a car that definitely looks far superior in the metal than it does on any paper, brochure or picture, the fluid lines that start on the front grill and work there way back to that, now, familiar brand identifier, kink by the rear doors, the lines then continue to make the rear of the car so different, not just a standard hatchback, but a piece of art, everything works, and flows seamlessly.

The interior of the car does not fail to impress either, using high grade, quality leathers, Alcantara, soft touch plastics and a nice sized steering wheel, that has a feel to it that gives you confidence, I know that sounds odd, but you get into some cars and their steering wheels are thin and nasty, or too big and bulky, this one is just spot on, well, for me anyway.

The seats in this Q30 are without doubt some of the most comfortable, supportive and tactile in the sector, our car here, had some electric movement, but strangely a lower down model had full electric seating, where as this one, which cost significantly more, did not, the steering wheel has a decent amount of reach and rake so between that and the seats, getting a decent position is very easy, I also noted that head room for a car in this class was very good.

The car tested here had the 360° all round view camera facility, and it works extremely well, as we found out, it is very strange to see the roof of your car, with the cars around you, but this set up has been successfully used for some time on a number of Nissan models, and on this, assists in parking, and keeping an eye on how close cars are to you in traffic, when you come to a halt.

The steering is not as light as some cars, but it is weighted about right, so you can direct the car and know that's where it is going, the suspension and damper set up is firm, but not spine ripping, this car grips like a banker with his bonus cheque, when pushed you never feel like the car is struggling around bends, and the pull away is just superb.

The 2.2 litre diesel engine fitted here with a seven speed automatic is faultless, you put your foot on the go peddle and it does, quite quickly, and the gear change is sublime, so smooth and quick, we did notice on both cars we tested, (the other road test report will come shortly), there was some road and wind noise, at speed it can be a little off putting, but the road surfaces we took our cars around were not the best, and you will always get some wind noise around the wing mirrors, it's just something you accept no matter what car you drive.

Combine this engine and gearbox to the All Wheel Drive system and the car really is something special, it is very difficult to take it past it's "safe" level of drive ability, no matter what you do, it just grips and continues to grip and go round corners faultlessly, not that we recommend you do anything that could result in an incident, after-all, you must behave on the UK roads, most of the time.

We also noted that when pushed there was a distinct engine note, which we immediately thought sounded just like the Impreza, that Boxer Engine growl, again, this is something that was a positive, as it also gave the car an air of sportiness to it, and did at times "encourage" you to be a little heavy footed, but we had to behave, well, mostly.

The rear seats and passenger area was also a positive, plenty of room, two six footers sat in the back, with room to spare, and we never moved the front seats forward either, as with most cars, the rear seats do not have as much support as the front's, this is to allow for baby seats and three passengers, they were comfortable and very tactile, the boot space is very generous too, with a flat loading floor, there is not having to lug your shopping over a huge lip here.

Our drive took the car around a number of roads, from high speed dual carriage ways, to tight and twisting B-Roads and town driving, the car managed to return 28.8mpg over this distance, although, it has to be noted the mpg was still rising once we finished our, all too brief drive, the figures officially given are

• 47.7mpg Urban
• 65.7mpg Extra Urban
• 57.6mpg Combined

The EU6 engine is rated at 129g/km, slightly high, especially when you can get powerful diesel engines under the 100g/km mark, push the car and you might get near the claimed 134mph top speed, and give it some real beans and it will do the 0-60 in around 8.5 seconds, this sounds quite high in today's high torque engines, but then who actually does this.

At £33,890 this car is not the cheapest on the market, but you do get a lot of kit included, for that price, the 360° camera is a great addition, The key less entry, moving object detection, Voice recognition system, Drive mode selector, Automatic Park Assist, are just a tiny selection of what you can expect to find on this model.

The Q30 S is also not the lightest car in the car park, with a gross weight of 2075kg, is higher than the Lexus CT at 1790kg, The A-Class starts at 1960kg and the BMW 1-Series 5 door at 1395kg (Unladen), but the powerful engine does make up for this.

CONCLUSION

The Q30, for a first attempt at a premium compact, is a brilliant start, it hits all the targets, and surpasses most of them, whether you like the cars looks or not, you can not fail to be impressed that they have a range of superior products from this to luxury executive saloons and a range of very capable Crossovers.

It should also be noted that the Infiniti has been about for a while, so it begs teh questions why are they not better sellers, they have the pedigree, they have the quality, they have the range and they have the technology, and in some cases, they were first with a number of technical achievements which they have chosen NOT to "blow their trumpet" about. 

Why not, you have spent the money and put in all the effort and know how, so why not showcase it, if you don't, no one else will, and others, as has been noted recently, will take the plaudits for all your hard work. 

The Q30 deserves to succeed, in a sector lorded over by the German's, it is about time that they get a bit of a kicking and get shown how to do it, and do it with style, the UK has shown it can build class leading products, and the continued input from foreign investors, backs this up, this new car will be exported the world over, with an estimated 65,000 units per annum, should this be exceeded, then who knows, either UK expansion or a second plant elsewhere within the Nissan business.