“It’s what non-car people don’t get. They see cars as just a ton and a half, two tons of wires, glass, metal, and rubber, and that’s all they see. People like you or I know we have an unshakable belief that cars are living entities… You can develop a relationship with a car and that’s what non-car people don’t get… When something has foibles and won’t handle properly, that gives it a particularly human quality because it makes mistakes, and that’s how you can build a relationship with a car that other people won’t get.” – Jeremy Clarkson

   Bare with me on this one boys and girls, this is a love letter. A brief story of my first car, and what it inspired me to do with my current one. I’ll be talking to you all about it’s little niggles, nuances, and more importantly – what makes it so special. 

   In the beginning, the first G37 that wound up being mine started as my father’s. It started back in 2008, when he sold his Toyota Camry that he had been driving for a little extra cash. Him and my mother then pushed all their chips into the middle to start a business… Right in the middle of the 2008 recession. Against all odds, the gamble paid off, and left my dad who is a life long car guy, with a problem most car guys are familiar with. I’ve got the money to buy something fun – but what car to get? He shopped around on the internet for a while, looking at his various choices. He had enough money to go for something he really wanted, but not enough to go totally insane. Eventually, after a few months of searching and thinking, we wound up making a trip to an Infiniti dealer. Now this was in 2010, so for those of you that don’t know, the facelifted V36 Sedan, now called the G37 instead of G35, had just come out. He looked around the dealership without anything really catching his eye for a while, up until he got to the back of the lot. We saw a ’10 G37 Journey in Liquid Platinum, riding on the 18″ sport wheels, and he immediately loved it. Upon driving it, he loved it even more – So it went home with us that day.

 

  
 

3 years, 30k miles and one handing-over of the keys later, and that car become mine when I was 17 years old. Many, many mods followed. I love (notice that isn’t past tense) that car, and learned many, many things about driving, and myself in it. Girls who came and went, along with one special one who stuck around, trips to races in it, drag racing, drifting, and autocrossing. I even got it stuck in some mud after sliding around on a flat field with it, due to me failing to notice where the nearby retention pond had over flowed. Think what you will of that last bit, but I learned my lesson… which was how to Scandinavian flick a 3790lb sedan with an open diff and a sleepy automatic, and keep it nice and sideways. That sentence sums up the length of my ownership pretty well. 

Then, after 1.5 years, nearly 30k more miles, and another handing-over of the keys, that car was passed on to my best friend Andrew, who had been there for all the adventures, and there to help with all the mods. He treats it very well, and it’s now his classroom, his way to learn, his passport to freedom – just as it was mine. 
 

Where did I go from that? I stayed with my roots, the 4 Door Sports Car. I found quite on accident actually, a near bone stock 2013 G37S 6MT Sedan, in Liquid Platinum, with 6800 miles on the odometer. For those of you that don’t know, the 6MT G Sedan is pretty damn rare – even more so in silver from my experience. Most of those that aren’t in the G35/7 community don’t even know the 6MT Sedan exists. As a result it had always been a fabled car for me, one that I knew existed but I never thought I would actually own. Then, 3 weeks after seeing that ad and talking to the owner, a very kind gentleman named Dave, the car was on a truck, and then at my front door. Then after two months, and a few parts sourcing mishaps, my new V36 Sedan was once again modded nearly to perfection in my eyes.

Motordyne Shockwave Catback Exhaust, SPL Front Upper Control Arms & Rear Camber Arms, Swift Lowering Springs (Fortune Auto Coils are coming), Hotchkis Sway Bars, a Cusco Front Strut Tower Brace and 19″ Advan GT’s – Those are all the big ticket items that make the car what it is, combined with a plethora of little things I won’t list for the sake of your attention span.

Now someone who’s stuck around to this point may be asking, “Who cares? It’s a boring Infiniti mom-mobile that happens to have 3 pedals and a stick to churn the butter with. Why is it so special?” To simply put it – The feeling it gives me when I drive it. I’ve driven quite a few cars in my short life, and I can tell you that aside from the Ferrari 430 Scuderia I once got to drive on track, I’ve never felt more connected to a car. 

The car definitely posesses it’s list of pros & cons, however. 

When you get inside my car you’re enveloped by the sea of black leather… Sort of. The seats, are all leather, as well as the steering wheel, but many things aren’t. The interior is covered in faux luxury pleather, from the dash, to the center console, and upper door panels – although I don’t really care, I think it could’ve been trimmed better, given it’s original price point. Where it gets better is the object placed in front of you – a simple, 3-spoke steering wheel wrapped in (real) leather, with a rim that’s of a perfect thickness, along with excellent hand bolsters at 9 & 3. Speaking of bolstering, the seats in this G37S, unlike the normal G37, have it in spades. You’re held in the seat well, while remaining extremely comfortable in a position of your choice, power adjusted 6-ways by switches on the side of the seat, and a small stick on the side to manually adjust lumbar support. Once you’re comfortable, your hand finds the black aluminum Nismo shift knob I’ve fitted to replace the cumbersome, unattractive OEM unit – which is of a perfect height and weight for whatever driving style you’re in the mood for. The pedals are metal examples, again unlike the G37 Journey which has some type of rubber. All inputs are responsive, and intuitive at present – but not all were created equal.

The clutch was the only thing I had a quarrel with this car over, as the OEM return spring was a horribly engineered, double sprung, piece of garbage. In my opinion, it’s the one object the engineers got wrong. You would have to kick the clutch in with a brutish amount of force, and then hold all that spring weight on the way up, because if you didn’t, the secondary spring would snap it straight through the catch point, and you would stall. This system left even the most veteran 3 pedal operators I knew quite frustrated – it made them look like they were amateurs again. The solution to this issue was to remove the secondary spring altogether, and replace the primary with a softer unit. Since then there have been zero issues, and the clutch feels better than ever!

Having addressed the single major issue with the inputs, you’re now left with a machine that has no major issues, and is far more refined than the model that started it’s generation only a few years ago. Everything on the inside is just that much nicer. The infotainment system feels much more 2013, and much less 2006, as was the case prior. The cup holders in this 6MT model are much better designed in my opinion, being in tandem this go around. The design used to be more a statement of – ‘Here’s this oval shaped hole in front of the console, have fun trying to fit anything other than two Redbull cans into it.”. Although the center console design is much improved in terms of ergonomics, it does leave you with less of a storage compartment, and more of a cubby hole you can put some gum, and maybe some driving gloves in. Something quite funny is that they actually put a little slot next to the forward most cupholder that you can put quarters in – the idea being you use them to pay your tolls! Definitely the most quirky, Japanese-y thing on this car.

The G’s powerplant is the high revving, variable valve timing, 3.7 liter V6, rated at 328hp at 7000rpm, and 270ft-lbs of torque at 5200. That’s mated to a close ratio 6-speed manual, which is taken out back to a 3.69 ratio limited slip differential, and put to the ground by the 265mm wide tires I have on the rear of the car. I’m not a fan of power numbers and specs, so I won’t include any more – because that’s not what this car (or any car, really.) is about to me. All those things are irrelevant – it’s about the way the car feels. 

“Who cares? It’s a boring Infiniti mom-mobile that happens to have 3 pedals and a stick to churn butter with. Why is it so special?”

Upon entering and starting the car it idles high at around 1500rpm to warm itself up a bit, then dipping down to a much quieter 800rpm idle. At first driving the car, the gearbox can feel a tad clunky, taking a little bit of drive time to get up to temperature, then allowing you to click the car into gear without a hint of resistance. Even through the normal turns of mundane every day driving, the quick steering with it’s one and a quarter turns to lock feels sharp, and responsive, giving you the feel of there being nothing lost in translation between your hands, and where the tires meet the road.

Start to drive the car aggressively and it’s immediately evident why someone could love this car so much. I’ll write you a little narrative to explain what I’m on about. 

You start off cruising down your favorite back road in high gear. You start by turning TCS off, then shifting down to 2nd and taking off. You’re greeted by a loud, –“bwwwaAAA!”-induction noise from the front as the car winds out, and an exhaust note in your ear you’ll scarcely believe the car is emitting. (No joke, an uncorked VQ37 is a near orgasmic sound.) You’re barreling down the country road at speed, trees and ranches whizzing by, and you notice there’s what looks to be a 3rd gear corner coming up. You downshift quickly with a blip of the throttle, slotting the gear lever into place, you leave the speed up a little higher than you’re comfortable with, and turn into the apex. Seemingly through telepathic communication, you’re out the other side with minimal effort, at a more than likely very illegal speed, feeling amazed. Next up comes a very tight right hander, necessitating the use of the more than adequate Akebono brakes. You lay halfway into them, downshifting into 2nd along the way. You go wide, trail brake into the apex, feeling the car start to rotate, you punch it, sending you into a respectable, easily controlled slide, and out the other end. 

Performance driving is what this car does best, it is simply sublime to operate on the edge. The feeling of it pulling hard through the first four gears, and the organ-reorganizing amount of brake force are amazing. As well, the way it rotates into corners, then the planted feel in the middle of them, and the effortless, no drama acceleration on corner exit is scarcely believable. After applying the correct modifications, the car feels like it was designed to do nothing else, but solely to put a massive ear to ear smile on your face anytime you decide to grab it by the scruff of the neck.

   “I’ve driven quite a few cars in my short life, and I can tell you that aside from the Ferrari 430 Scuderia I once got to drive on track, I’ve never felt more connected to a car.”

Hopefully that helps shed some light on why I think these cars are so amazing. A smart person can choose the right modifications to wake the chassis up, and all of a sudden you can tell it has become exactly what the engineers at Nissan wanted it to be the whole time – a car to pull up next to the M3 at the store to get groceries, and then keep the M3 on it’s toes through the twisties on the way home. I can tell you right now, I will always own one – I probably won’t ever sell the one in my possession today.

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Sorry for the crappy iPhone photo, it’s the only picture I have at the moment that I can use, all the other ones are .raw files. Only differences of the two cars you can notice here are the lack of front plate, and the wheels. However, many differences lurk underneath! Thanks for reading.

– Bailey Brewer