From the December 1996 issue of Car and Driver.
Here's great news for those new car buyers trying to scrape by on 50 large. The ready-to-drive rack is groaning with the season's latest fashions, and most of them are all new within the past few months. Sounds like the call for your obedient servants to slip into their calibrated, thin-seat trousers and head for the secret test roads, doesn't it?
The fresh faces here are the BMW 540i, the Mercedes-Benz E420, and the Infiniti Q45t. In the latter case, Nissan has jacked up the familiar Q45 badge and driven an all-new sedan underneath. The original Q, you may remember, came confidently into the luxury market as a 1990 model thinking the customers would be won by horsepower instead of dashboard wood. They weren't. For 1997, a chastened Infiniti's second try for those customers crams an all-you-can-drive smorgasbord of luxury-car cues into a body cautiously styled to avoid offending anyone.
This retargeted Japanese entry faces two Germans that you might recognize as V-8 versions of the six-cylinder sedans that placed first and second in our "Semiprecious Metal" comparison (C/D, August 1996). These two cars reflect a European approach to midrange luxury that's quite distinct from the Japanese way and from the American way. These are downright compact four-doors with the sort of sinewy chassis muscles that activist drivers enjoy. Those who enter through the three other doors are carried as tourist-class passengers and are encouraged to keep quiet if they can't say something nice. You will notice, though, that this magazine is staffed by test drivers, not test passengers, so the European way usually gathers the most votes.
Usually. But readers of above-average RAM may recall our luxury sedan comparison (C/D, February 1995), in which the second-generation Lexus LS400 made its debut by outscoring all comers in a group priced about like this one. That Lexus stands as a luxury-car benchmark—an outstanding combination of comfort, silence, power, fuel economy, and roominess. As it rolls into its third year of sales, the price remains about where it was ($55,141 base for 1997). Can this proven Lexus formula still whup the Europeans? Comparison tests were invented to answer such questions.
Any other candidate out there? The Cadillac STS has just enjoyed a substantial price cut for 1997, dropping it well below the 50-large mark. And we see no other possibilities. So let the ratings begin.
Jump to:
- 4th Place: Infiniti Q45t
- 3rd Place: Lexus LS400
- 2nd Place: BMW 540i
- 1st Place: Mercedes-Benz E420
4th Place: Infiniti Q45t
After a few seasons at their craft, car testers, like wine tasters, learn to read their subjects very quickly—the first 10 miles fills in most of the picture. But not in this Infiniti. The flavors are too subtle, they build too slowly. It's more delicious on the second day, and better still on the third. What seems at first to be a big, silent, indecisive saloon turns into, after some hours, a self-effacing machine with an inherent poise that lets you cover the miles in comfort, and with little effort.
Certainly, some of the credit for this goes to the Touring option, the source of the "t" in Q45t, which includes a sport-tuned suspension (stiffer rear shocks and springs, softer rear anti-roll bar). Gone is the firm ride and rear-steering suspension of the earlier Q45t, leaving only poise. Isolation from the road is too great to please the Euro enthusiasts—and that costs points in our balloting—but the result is admirable nonetheless.
The flavor here is definitely poise rather than verve. In quarter-mile speed, which is a very good indicator of a car's power feel, the Q is far behind the others, 10 mph slower than the BMW 540i, 7 mph behind the M-B, 4 mph behind the Lexus. The others feel like fast cars, the Q never does. Yet it's no less capable than the others in road-gripping ability, as the group's tight envelope of braking and skidpad results clearly shows.
Never mind that the Q has been modestly downsized for 1997, it's still the biggest (nearly a foot longer than the BMW) and heaviest (about 250 pounds heavier than the Mercedes) car here. Interior space is more generous than in the German cars, although it can't quite match that of the clever Lexus. The Q45's trunk beat them all for ease of use. It's wide rather than long, so there'll never be that long reach for objects that have worked their way toward the front.
The driver sits high in this cabin, on the seat rather than in it. And he's surrounded by furniture—shiny woodlike trim, big pieces of it, on the dash, the doors, and the console. How did they miss the ceiling? The leather has a soft, smooth surface texture, and the seats have plush padding over a reasonably supportive foundation. The mood inside is ornate, heavy on the gestures, busier by far than in any of the other cars here. Yet certain features that customers are coming to expect at this price—separate climate controls for each front passenger, power headrest adjusters, side airbags—are absent.
HIGHS: An agreeable balance of interior silence, ride smoothness, and handling predictability; best trunk for loading and unloading.
LOWS: Weak on power, exterior is forgettable, interior is memorable mostly for the way the wood shouts, "Fake!"
VERDICT: A four-door that keeps growing on you despite its unpretty face.
Generally, we're impressed by the quiet confidence with which this new Q covers the miles, but that's not enough.
3rd Place: Lexus LS400
Before you conclude that the Lexus formula has lost its magic, look at the closeness of the balloting. Just three points separate first from third positions. If, like the Supreme Court, we published our majority and minority opinions, you would notice that a solid minority gave top marks to the LS400. Testers are like customers in that, once we get beyond the test-track absolutes and the features content, the chocolate—or—tutti-frutti personal preferences show themselves. The majority expects an involving driving experience, and sporting moves on the road—never mind that most of the buyers affluent enough to shop in the 50-large market are old enough to have undergone some cooling of their red-hot corpuscles.
Although this Lexus knows a thing or two about rushing down the pike—as does any car that hits 91 mph in the quarter-mile and rolls on up to 149 mph when you give it its head—this car really wants to be a roadgoing cloud. It's so smooth, so silent, so serene, that it's in a class of one here for sumptuous transit. Its low beltline gives a great view out. Its interior surfaces have been sculpted into artistic forms. The mocha—over—créme caramel interior colors give pleasure without calories. The leather has a remarkable texture—it feels dry to the touch—that keeps you from sticking to the seats. The space available inside easily overwhelms that of the others here, and the shapes of seats and armrests are wonderfully hospitable. The amenities seem right for the obvious needs of travelers—from the adjustable lumbar supports (not included on this group's Euro brands) to the reading lights in four passenger positions. Do you find joy in details? The retractable coat hangers over the rear doors, and their silky emergence when you release them, are typical of the small pleasures this car provides.
The majority, however, takes its greatest pleasures from communication with the machine. Lexus engineers have deliberately muted such conversations by isolating the driver from the road. Road sound is remarkably slight, and the steering is of the low-effort style, with a weak sense of straight-ahead. Moreover, the first few degrees of body roll come rather too quickly as lateral forces build. So the LS400 isn't a car for hustling into fast bends, although road grip once you're set up in the turn is not materially different from that of the BMW.
HIGHS: Cloudlike smoothness and silence, impeccable taste in every interior appointment, luxuriously spacious.
LOWS: Controls and suspension too isolated for BMW and Mercedes crowd, instrument lights won't dim enough for dark rural nights.
VERDICT: Rolls-Royce opulence masked by a grille that lets you get by with smaller tips.
Some drivers found the steering column didn't tilt downward quite far enough. The always-illuminated instruments, wonderfully sharp in daylight, refuse to dim sufficiently for rural nights, drawing more disapproval. But there was only admiration for EPA fuel economy, which topped the group's. Paint quality, and the fit of the body panels, also excelled.
Even those of us who prefer a more intense driving experience would agree that the LS400 is a remarkable engineering achievement.
2nd Place: BMW 540i
For sporting jaunts, this BMW's power and accurate handling make it the top choice. But for journeys with back-seat passengers and stuff in the trunk, its tight dimensions make it the bottom choice. After due consideration, we ranked it second. Propelled by its 4.4-liter V-8, the largest and most powerful engine of the group, this BMW easily outruns the others: At 6.3 seconds to 60 mph and 97 mph in the quarter-mile, it's 0.7 second quicker and 3 mph faster than the next-speedy Mercedes. At road speeds, the five-speed automatic seems to know why you're depressing the accelerator and downshifts with little lag, the machinery sings sweetly, and the phone poles begin to blur. In metro traffic, though, anything less than full throttle causes the transmission to start in second, killing performance until the revs build.
For those who choose to work the lever, second, third, fourth, and top gears each have their own individual positions. Press a button on the handle before moving the lever. Your current selection appears in a dashboard display. This arrangement gives the driver plenty of control. Yet for the most common shifts we do on our trips, the Mercedes and Lexus ways are arguably better. Each gives manual upshifts and downshifts between the top two gears with a sideways flick of the lever. No worries about slipping beyond your intended detent. In the Mercedes, a rearward pull from fourth gear into third is accompanied by a solid stop at another corner of the shifter maze, so you needn't worry about over-traveling that one, either.
Both the BMW and the Mercedes have a taut, connected-to-the-road feel that boosts driver confidence as speeds build, but the BMW is a little sharper in its steering, a little more sophisticated in its control of body motions. It's also a little quieter down the interstates, mostly due to excellent suppression of wind noise. When the roads get rough, though, you hear a booming sound caused by structural resonances—"bongo drums," wrote one tester-and plenty of airborne kawop from the tires, serving to remind that "road feel" is not all fun.
Along with the road feel, the BMW's cockpit intimacy reinforces the sporty mood. The beltline is relatively high, putting you down inside the car. You sit close to the door panel, and close to the console. The seat buckets you in place. It's a just-right spot when you're out for a fling with some seductive piece of road. But for everyday motoring, it may fall short of your expectations of a 50-kilobuck sedan. "I'd like not to feel so encased," wrote one tester who admits to private BMW enthusiasms.
HIGHS: Sporty power and howl, sporty cockpit closeness, sporty feel in the steering and suspension.
LOWS: Stingy back seat and trunk space, part-throttle second-gear starts make for sluggish metro performance, rough roads bring cheap noises out of the dash and trim.
VERDICT: Seatbelts for five, fun for one.
Encased is the feeling of rear-seat passengers, too. Three across brings firm shoulder contact, and center passengers complain about the foot space being hogged by the prominent tunnel. The cushion is relatively close to the floor, which makes for awkward leg angles and reminds that this car has less stretch-out room than the others. Trunk room, at only 12 cubic feet, is one cubic foot less than the next-smallest, the Infiniti.
If you have to ask about trunk room, you're probably not a 540i buyer.
1st Place: Mercedes-Benz E420
Mercedes cars always act like machines, and the machine takes the top spot here—over the spirited BMW, over the cloudlike Lexus, over the poised Infiniti. There's an efficiency about this Mercedes machine that we find compelling. Its compact exterior dimensions are close to those of the BMW, but the passenger and cargo spaces are substantially more generous. Despite the extra room, it's the lightest car here at 3698 pounds, nearly 200 less than the BMW.
Low mass pays off in handling and performance. Skidpad grip is the highest of the group at 0.79 g, and braking tied with the 540i's for shortest stops, though it must be said that every car here showed first-rate brakes. EPA fuel economy ranks the Benz 1 mpg behind the temperance champ Lexus, but our test-trip mileage put the E420 on top by 1 mpg. Acceleration, also second best, trails that of the BMW by an unexpected 0.7 second to 60 mph. A simple glance at the gearing and power-to-weight figures suggests that our test car may not have been performing to spec—a hunch that is backed up by the test figures from our last E420 (C/D, July 1996), which hit 60 mph in 6.6 seconds and did the quarter-mile in 14.9 seconds at 96 mph.
Still, this V-8 is a quick, sure-footed sedan that serves a broad range of interests. Our weighting of features and amenities gives top score here (rounding lifts the BMW to parity on the Editors' Ratings grid), heavily influenced by the phone and CD changer, which the Mercedes has and the Lexus lacks. But more important by far is this car's machinelike personality, which speaks directly to the driver and connects him to the road. You hear the sounds of motion, of a revving engine, of tires rolling over the details of transit. These inputs keep you in the game, ready for what happens next, unlike the more isolated Lexus and Infiniti where there's always the slight apprehension that you'd need a wake-up call before coping with an emergency.
You have no choice but to be involved with this Mercedes machine. The seat is firm, approaching dictatorial, in its unyielding support of your backside. The interior appointments are stern, though warmed, compared with past Benzes, by appealing sweeps of genuine wood trim here and there. For such a small car—eight inches shorter than a Ford Taurus, 2.2 inches narrower—rear-seat passengers will find amazing knee and foot room, spoiled only for the toes of size 12 wingtips by a bar between the seat tracks. The seat is very firm back there, very upright, too. And the hospitality gestures toward the folks in back can only be called grudging. Comparing the Mercedes coat hooks and overhead assist handles—both black plastic, both fixed in place—to their retractable, mocha-colored counterparts in the Lexus, which deploy with beautifully liquid motions, shows exactly the contrasting approaches between European and Japanese carmakers in general, and these two prestigious brands in particular. Lexus tries, and succeeds, in creating a mood of opulence for all occupants while Mercedes concentrates on keeping the driver in touch with the road, and with his job.
HIGHS: Athletic moves over the road, confidence-inspiring brakes, just-right driver ergonomics.
LOWS: Knee restraints always bother, boomy over the bumps, interior as cushy-comfy as Grandma's straight-back chairs.
VERDICT: Great for the hard drivers, but the passengers will wish for the Lexus.
Being car guys, we applaud the variety available in this class; being drivers, we're won over by the Mercedes.
Specifications
Specifications
1997 BMW 540i
Vehicle Type: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door sedan
PRICE
Base/As Tested: $51,952/$52,214
ENGINE
DOHC 32-valve V-8, aluminum block and heads, port fuel injection
Displacement: 268 in3, 4398 cm3
Power: 282 hp @ 5700 rpm
Torque: 310 lb-ft @ 3900 rpm
TRANSMISSION
5-speed automatic
CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: struts/multilink
Brakes, F/R: vented disc/vented disc
Tires: Continental ContiTouring Contact
225/55HR-16
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 111.4 in
Length: 188.0 in
Width: 70.9 in
Height: 56.5 in
Passenger Volume, F/R: 52/43 ft3
Trunk Volume: 12 ft3
Curb Weight: 3886 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS
60 mph: 6.3 sec
1/4-Mile: 14.9 sec @ 97 mph
100 mph: 15.7 sec
120 mph: 24.1 sec
Rolling Start, 5–60 mph: 6.6 sec
Top Gear, 30–50 mph: 3.2 sec
Top Gear, 50–70 mph: 4.0 sec
Top Speed (gov ltd): 128 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 175 ft
Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 0.77 g
Interior Sound
Idle: 45 dBA
Full Throttle: 74 dBA
70-mph Cruising: 67 dBA
C/D FUEL ECONOMY
Observed: 18 mpg
EPA FUEL ECONOMY
Combined/City/Highway: 18/24 mpg
--
1997 Infiniti Q45t
Vehicle Type: fron-engine, rear-wheel-drive, X5passenger, 4-door sedan
PRICE
Base/As Tested: $49,691/$51,871
ENGINE
DOHC 32-valve V-8, aluminum block and heads, port fuel injection
Displacement: 252 in3, 4130 cm3
Power: 266 hp @ 5600 rpm
Torque: 278 lb-ft @ 4000 rpm
TRANSMISSION
4-speed automatic
CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: struts/multilink
Brakes, F/R: vented disc/vented disc
Tires: Michelin Energy MXV4
P215/60VR-16
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 111.4 in
Length: 199.2 in
Width: 71.7 in
Height: 56.9 in
Passenger Volume, F/R: 54/43 ft3
Trunk Volume: 13 ft3
Curb Weight: 3936 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS
60 mph: 8.3 sec
1/4-Mile: 16.4 sec @ 87 mph
100 mph: 21.6 sec
120 mph: 34.3 sec
Rolling Start, 5–60 mph: 8.3 sec
Top Gear, 30–50 mph: 4.4 sec
Top Gear, 50–70 mph: 4.9 sec
Top Speed: 141 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 180 ft
Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 0.77 g
Interior Sound
Idle: 43 dBA
Full Throttle: 73 dBA
70-mph Cruising: 68 dBA
C/D FUEL ECONOMY
Observed: 17 mpg
EPA FUEL ECONOMY
City/Highway: 18/23 mpg
--
1997 Lexus LS400
Vehicle Type: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door sedan
PRICE
Base/As Tested: $55,141/$56,405
ENGINE
DOHC 32-valve V-8, aluminum block and heads, port/direct/port and direct fuel injection
Displacement: 242 in3, 3969 cm3
Power: 260 hp @ 5300 rpm
Torque: 270 lb-ft @ 4500 rpm
TRANSMISSION
4-speed automatic
CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: control arms/multilink
Brakes, F/R: vented disc/vented disc
Tires: Bridgestone Turanza
P225/60VR-16
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 112.2 in
Length: 196.7 in
Width: 72.0 in
Height: 55.9 in
Passenger Volume, F/R: 55/44 ft3
Trunk Volume: 14 ft3
Curb Weight: 3768 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS
60 mph: 7.5 sec
1/4-Mile: 15.7 sec @ 91 mph
100 mph: 18.8 sec
120 mph: 27.7 sec
Rolling Start, 5–60 mph: 7.7 sec
Top Gear, 30–50 mph: 3.7 sec
Top Gear, 50–70 mph: 4.4 sec
Top Speed: 149 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 178 ft
Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 0.76 g
Interior Sound
Idle: 40 dBA
Full Throttle: 72 dBA
70-mph Cruising: 66 dBA
C/D FUEL ECONOMY
Observed: 19 mpg
EPA FUEL ECONOMY
City/Highway: 19/26 mpg
--
1997 Mercedes-Benz E420
Vehicle Type: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door sedan
PRICE
Base/As Tested: $51,979/$55,445
ENGINE
DOHC 32-valve V-8, aluminum block and heads, port fuel injection
Displacement: 256 in3, 4196 cm3
Power: 275 hp @ 5700 rpm
Torque: 295 lb-ft @ 3900 rpm
TRANSMISSION
5-speed automatic
CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: control arms/multilink
Brakes, F/R: vented disc/disc
Tires: Michelin Energy MXV4
P215/55HR-16
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 111.5 in
Length: 189.4 in
Width: 70.8 in
//Without mirrors//
Height: 56.7 in
Passenger Volume, F/R: 51/44 ft3
Trunk Volume: 14 ft3
Curb Weight: 3698 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS
60 mph: 7.0 sec
100 mph: 17.1 sec
1/4-Mile: 15.4 sec @ 94 mph
120 mph: 26.1 sec
Rolling Start, 5–60 mph: 7.5 sec
Top Gear, 30–50 mph: 3.6 sec
Top Gear, 50–70 mph: 4.2 sec
Top Speed (gov ltd): 132 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 175 ft
Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 0.79 g
Interior Sound
Idle: 44 dBA
Full Throttle: 74 dBA
70-mph Cruising: 68 dBA
C/D FUEL ECONOMY
Observed: 20 mpg
EPA FUEL ECONOMY
City/Highway: 18/25 mpg
C/D TESTING EXPLAINED