All form, no function

In 2002, I saw the extravagant-looking Infiniti FX45 concept on the car show circuit.

The thing to understand here is that concept cars are designed to be outlandish so they catch the eye of the public and visiting press, generating buzz and excitement. Sometimes they get turned into actual production cars (the Dodge Viper, for instance), but more often head overrules heart and the design is toned down before it reaches the market.

The FX45 went more or less directly from the revolving show stand to the dealer’s lot. For observers stunned by the "bionic cheetah" looks of this crouching cat, that was a very good thing.

Reviewer Dan Jedlicka described it as "like a futuristic auto show crossover vehicle come to life" and "arguably the vehicle that Porsche should have built instead of its boxy, costlier Cayenne." Woman Motorist purred that vehicles on the Nissan car-based FM platform "seem more akin to slinky sports cars than lumbering SUV hulks." Road and Travel added, "It’s taut and athletic in a sculptural shape, but also smooth and sleek, even sensuous — but clearly a departure from the two-box school of SUV styling."

I say, bollocks! They’re making superficial judgments based on looks, like that hapless Jack Nicholson character in Carnal Knowledge. Aside from its fairly sleek surface (which looks particularly gaudy in "liquid copper"), there’s nothing at all sporty about the FX45. This is one of the all-time worst SUVs I’ve ever driven, almost unmanageable in tight parking situations, and with really awful rear vision.

On its huge, chrome-rimmed 20-inch wheels (a $1,600 option!) and with bulging flanks invisible to the driver, it’s like trying to maneuver a hippo through a Rembrandt exhibit. I never thought I’d see a Japanese manufacturer let form trump function in such an undignified way.

Despite its huge size (and wallet-busing price: $53,245 as tested), the FX45 has less utility than a Subaru Outback, and it’s considerably less convenient on the road.

Yes, the FX45 accelerates well and handles adequately (as long as you give it plenty of room). It should acquit itself here, since it is powered by a 315-horsepower, 4.5-liter V-8 engine that sucks up fuel at a rate of 15 mpg in the city (19 on the highway). It has standard stability and traction controls — a good thing.

To cite an example of this vehicle’s practical failings, the aluminum roof rails (part of a $2,500 package) curve around like the surface of the moon. Try strapping something flat up there! The boogie boards I brought back from the beach in North Carolina would have been long gone.

To make up for the almost-comical lack of rear vision, there’s a high-tech camera (part of a $4,300 package) that offers an extremely misleading view of what you’re about to run over. I was constantly bracing myself for inevitable impacts with the ground-level obstacles far below. Such are the virtues of "sitting up high."

Humorist Bruce McCall recently had some fine sport in the New Yorker parodying an SUV owner’s manual. If you accidentally run over a small car, the piece said, rock the SUV back and forth until all metallic grinding noises cease. Perhaps he had the Infiniti FX45 in mind when he wrote it.

Rolling over

In a brief follow-up to my earlier report on rollover risk, new federal data show that domestic SUVs continue to perform poorly.

The worst of a bad lot is the Ford Explorer Sport Trac 4X2, which has a 34.8-percent chance of rolling over in a one-car accident. The worst car tested was an all-wheel-drive model, the Subaru Outback wagon (15.5-percent chance of tipping over).