With the M30 convertible, Infiniti offers a car for those who want the fresh-air sportiness of a ragtop without the harshness of a sports car.
This M30 is more of a personal/-luxury car, one for profiling on cool summer nights, rather than blazing down back roads in a frenzy.The way it combines style and luxury, it reminded me of a 1957 Ford Thunderbird.
Neither Lexus nor Acura nor Mitsubishi has a convertible, and that makes the M30 unique among this group.
It isn't a high-tech luxury car like its big-brother the Q45. Rather, it is a traditionally styled Japanese automobile that looks and feels like it's one generation removed from the current Infiniti offerings. That's especially noticeable the way the dashboard is laid out.
The M30 coupe from which this convertible is derived is the in-between Infiniti, slotted between the luxury/performance Q45 and the G20 sports sedan. The slickest thing about the convertible is the fully automatic top that completely unlatches and lowers itself at the push of a button. And Infiniti buyers will expect the M30 to be luxurious, too, so the power top is appropriate. That's significant because convertibles don't get much use if the top is hard to put up and down.
When the M30 debuted it was the more traditional of the Infiniti models, and it remains so. Styled more in the fashion of a five-year-old Japanese car, it is angular rather than rounded and sleek like the Q45 or G20.
Powered by a 3-liter V-6, the M30 convertible has 162 horsepower, which gives it sufficient punch to make it responsive. Quietly lolling about with the top down is what the M30 does best.
The fully-automatic power top takes only one finger to raise or lower. Push a button on the dashboard and the windows go down first. Then little augers unscrew from the windshield header and the top settles into its spot behind the back seat. A boot can be used to Continued from E1
cover the folded top, but I found it too much trouble to take in and out of the trunk to be of practical use.
Putting the top up is the reverse, again done with one touch.
The only other car with a completely automatic top costs nearly three times as much as the M30.
The M30 is quiet, solid and fairly rattle-free for a convertible. It wiggles a bit on rough roads, as do most convertibles these days, but not to the point of annoyance.
Ergonomics, or the way the car and driver relate, are not as good as they are in the newer Infiniti cars. Switches on the dashboard were hard to reach, the design is angular and square rather than round and fluid, and it lacked the same quality look and feel of its stablemates. The M30 is clearly an older generation car, and that shows most in the interior design.
The exterior is angular, but it's proportionally well-designed and looks especially attractive with the top down. It's not as svelte with the top up.
The suspension has two electronic modes: sport and comfort. I found the sport settings to be too jiggly and I left it on comfort most of the time. The M30 uses Nissan's sonar sensor to read the road and adjust the suspension's harshness accordingly.
Price of the convertible is $31,385, and that includes anti-lock, four-wheel-disc brakes, air bag on the driver's side, air conditioning, leather seats, power windows, power locks, tilt steering wheel and AM/FM stereo cassette player.