I’m guessing that when “sport” became the first word in sport utility vehicle, or SUV, it was meant more along the lines of sporting - vehicles that would make their way out past the pavement to the hunting camp. Now, many manufacturers put “sporty” into SUV, including Infiniti’s FX35. 64,050 for the FX50. Our tester, the FX35, uses a 3.5-litre V6, producing 303 horsepower and 262 lb-ft of torque, mated to a seven-speed automatic transmission. While it’s not quite like piloting a Nissan 370Z around a curvy road, I’d tag the FX as the closest to it among its SUV peers. It’s based on the platform used for the G coupe and sedan, and feels far more car-like than utility-like. The ride is choppy, but the suspension is firm and well-planted, steering is communicative, and it takes corners sharply, rather than swinging out around them. It may be taller and have a higher centre of gravity than a sports car, but it never feels that way.
Counter to the otherwise exceptional driving experience is the braking, which feels mushy and needs better bite on the pedal. The FX’s curvy profile looks really sweet, but it does come with a price: the rear seats aren’t very roomy, and should the front-seat passengers move their chairs backwards, those behind will really feel the squeeze. Visibility also suffers with the short greenhouse and sharply raked rear window. The grille, introduced for 2009 and resembling ripples on a pond, looks great but turned out to be difficult to clean up for photos: it’s tough to get the chamois in between the bars. Inside, the design is simple and elegant, with centre stack controls placed in an easy-to-find configuration around Infiniti’s signature analogue clock. The memory-equipped seats are long-distance comfortable and include both heating and cooling functions; finding the right driving position becomes even easier with the power tilt-and-telescopic steering column. The rear seats recline for extra comfort, and they fold forward, although not flat, increasing the cargo area from a length of 90 cm to a length of 170 cm when they’re dropped. I’d like to see a new design for the inside front door handles, though, and it’s a problem that isn’t unique to Nissan: they’re too far forward. You simply can’t get enough leverage when opening the door on a windy day, or when trying to squeeze out in a tight parking spot without dinging the car next door. If the handle must be this close to the hinge, then there should be a secondary hand-hold at the rear of the armrest so the door can be stabilized.
The result is a grungy, off-beat voice, a million miles from the mainstream, popular approach. Think Janis Joplin versus Céline Dion and ask yourself who’d you’d rather listen to. But that’s not the only reason V10s arrived in road cars more than 70 years later than did the V12. Even so, it took a while because the question of why anyone would want a V10 remained. It took two other manufacturers who never put a 10-cylinder engine in a road car to provide the answer. This time, it was Honda and Renault and the motivation was F1. It saddens me because it says the real appeal of such a motor is not what it does for the driver but what they think it says about him or her. I find myself wanting to shout ‘just listen to the bloody thing’ rarely more than when recently recovered from the interior of a hard-driven Huracán. They cannot. They don’t make my ears ring, least not like this. And I admire Lamborghini and, indeed, Audi for sticking with it, in the same way I admire McLaren for its refusal to give up hydraulically assisted steering.
Both make the cars to which they are fitted better to drive, and in cars such as these, that should trump all other considerations. No one ever bought a Ferrari or a McLaren in preference to a Lamborghini for its slightly less calamitous on-paper CO2 emissions. But I worry. We know turbo engines are coming to the R8 and we know the Volkswagen Group is still looking for ways to save money on expensive programmes few of its customers will miss. A V10 production line would seem as likely a place to wield the axe as any. And that would be that: one stroke of a bean-counter’s pen on a piece of paper in Wolfsburg and the V10 could be dead and, I don’t doubt, dead it would stay. Sitting here, Huracán still howling and shrieking away in my head, I guess I should just be glad I knew the V10 at all.
1992 DODGE VIPER - An engine originally intended for a pick-up truck but recast in aluminium by Lamborghini. It displaced 8.0 litres and, when we drove it in the Viper, provided the best performance of any road car we’d driven. As the first V10 road car to go on sale, the Viper was a landmark that was to last 25 years. 2002 VOLKSWAGEN TOUAREG 5.0 TDI - It remains the world’s only V10 SUV, and although the 313bhp engine was technologically humble (it shared its bore and stroke with a 68bhp four-cylinder diesel), there was no doubting its effectiveness. Would tow a house without noticing. 2004 PORSCHE CARRERA GT - As blue-blooded a V10 as you’ll find: a 5.5-litre 603bhp engine designed to win Le Mans. Then the rules changed and Porsche pulled out and wondered what to do with the project. This car was the answer and the V10 one of the rarest but finest Porsche engines of all time. 2005 BMW M5 (E60) - BMW was in Formula 1 at the time and wanted to capitalise.
