She’s a handful — Infiniti’s ‘Red Sonja’ a force to reckon with

With the Q50 Red Sport 3.0t 400, Infiniti offers what it modestly calls “an engaging driving experience.” Let’s start with the name: 400 is the horsepower output; “3.0t” means the engine has three liters of capacity (in six cylinders, arranged in a “V”-shape) and it’s turbocharged; and “Red Sport” makes me think the marketing department went home on Friday having failed to come up with a better way to indicate that this is the most high-tech and power-soaked sedan Infiniti has ever offered. That or someone’s a fan of Conan the Barbarian’s crazed girlfriend. Clumsy nomenclature notwithstanding, Infiniti’s Red Sonja is a firecracker.

There’s nothing understated about Red Sonja, firecrackers or this Q50’s behavior. Under the hood is a new lighter, cleaner-burning, direct-injection engine that’s almost 20 percent smaller than the Q50’s previous 3.7-liter six-cylinder, but in Red Sport tune, it cranks out 22 percent more power while delivering a mile or two more per gallon of gas than the old engine (about 28 mpg on the highway). Ph.D.s could be earned on the strength of all the technology behind this, but it’s enough to say that the optimized-blade turbines in the two water-cooled turbochargers respond nearly instantly, peak at 240,000 rpm and can create nearly 15 psi of boost pressure without spontaneously detonating. In even fewer words: The motor seems to operate in zero gravity, and it accelerates a Red Sport Q50 like it’s departing the deck of an aircraft carrier.

The V-6 boils up so fast that, at first, we don’t realize that its seven-speed transmission is a normal, semilazy torque-converter automatic. How hard would this car go with a dual-clutch sportshift automatic? Or with traction at both ends? All-wheel drive is, in fact, an available $2,000 option.

Another of this Q50’s claims to techno fame is second-generation DAS, or Direct Adaptive Steering, also known as steer-by-wire. Although it has one as a backup, our car doesn’t need a mechanical steering column; the driver’s wheel communicates with the front wheels purely electronically — widgets measure speed and steering input, and then more widgets aim the front wheels accordingly. This makes the steering highly adjustable, if still not perfect. Whatever the setting, it feels oddly detached and unpredictable, more like a video game than a real car. However, DAS is a $1,000 option; skip it, and Red Sonja defaults to normal hydraulic power steering.

There are drive mode selector buttons on the console and the upper screen that let you toggle between personal, sport+, sport, standard, eco and snow settings; and normal and sport tuning for the drivetrain, steering and suspension. But, heaven help us, none of them seems just right. Red Sonja is mostly either on or off, in high-aggression attack or full-retardation gas-saver modes. In one, the throttle almost dives for the floor all by itself, and in the other it feels like it’s pushing back against my foot. Even standard drive mode can alternate between caffeinated and logy. The brakes, on the other hand, are always ready to bite, and the Dynamic Digital Suspension is always jarring, never forgiving. After several hundred miles of trying, I’m still finding it takes concentration to launch, drive and stop this car as smoothly as I’d like.

Possibly to emphasize the hands-on nature of its banzai personality, our Red Sport came without Infiniti’s $1,850 technology package, the all-but-self-driving option that once let us sail across Wyoming in a Q50 while barely paying attention to the car, and another time took me through Boston traffic without ever having to touch the brakes and nudging the throttle only occasionally. On both drives, all I lacked was a flight attendant to bring me a latte. I appreciated the help then and wouldn’t order the car without it now.

For 2016 Infiniti has significantly upped the Q50’s already strong game, but has it made a good car superior? The Q50 certainly looks better than ever on paper, and our Red Sonja version sparkles with speed, quality and tech-for-dollar. It can be fun having a race car as your daily driver, especially one with air-con, business-class seats and a killer sound system. Sometimes, though, you just want to get home after a long day at the office.

Park Place Infiniti Dealership, located at 5555 W. Sahara Ave., is the only Infiniti dealership in Southern Nevada.