Here are the top vehicles that received the highest scores:

The WRX features race car-like handling and a relatively good ride. For 2006 the updated 2.5-liter turbocharged engine adds more power and provides quick and effortless acceleration. Subaru’s well-tuned suspension offers a compliant ride, but it can easily slide its tail at its limits. The standard all-wheel drive provides secure all-season traction.

The Miata won drivers over with its balanced handling, quick and precise steering, and crispshifting six-speed manual transmission, all available at a reasonable price. The manual top can be lowered and raised with one hand from the driver’s seat, making open motoring a snap. An optional power folding hard top was introduced for 2007.

Audi’s S4 is a high-performance version of the A4. Power comes from a smooth 340-hp, 4.2-liter V8 engine that drives all four wheels. A six-speed manual transmission is standard; a six-speed automatic is optional. We found the ride stiff but not punishing, unlike the ride in other sports cars. Handling is very capable and secure. The interior is well-finished and nicely appointed. The power-operated leather Recaro racing-style seats are supportive and comfortable. Crash-test results for the sedan are excellent.

The updated G35 successfully blends sportiness and luxury. Available in rear- or all-wheel drive, it has an exuberant powertrain, agile handling, and a reasonably comfortable ride. The interior is nicely finished with much improved ergonomics.

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Judging from this preliminary sketch and the look of the sedan, many consumers do not expect a major change in the appearance of the car. Yet they do expect a honing of the previous look accompanied by significant changes to what you don’t see, but feel.

The consumers praised the new G35 sedan for its stiffer structure and improved steering, brakes, and shifter. The 306-hp 3.5-liter V-6 didn’t turn anyone off, either. After the G35 coupe debuts in New York, we’ll start to see the cars in Infiniti showrooms this summer.

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The Infiniti QX56 offers seating for seven or eight and is rated to tow 8,900-9,000 pounds. Nissan’s 5.6-liter 32-valve engine generates more torque than the V8s in the 2006 Cadillac Escalade and Lincoln Navigator.

Infiniti QX56 comes as one fully loaded model. You need only choose between two-wheel drive ($49,950) and four-wheel drive ($52,550). The 5.6-liter V8 is rated at a 315 horsepower and 390 pound-feet of torque, and the transmission is a five-speed automatic. The four-wheel-drive system includes a low range.

Leather-trimmed upholstery and the navigation system are standard. Also standard: xenon high-intensity discharge headlights, a power liftgate, a park-assist system, and a rearview video camera. Standard wheels are 18-inch chromium aluminum alloy, with 20-inch wheels optional. The QX56 comes with a full-size spare tire.

Squared off, clearly defined, barrel-like fender blisters add heft to the quarter panels. The arched roof over the passenger compartment pushes the D-pillar rearward, shrinking and reshaping the rear quarter windows in conflict with the somewhat organic outline of the front and rear door windows. Nissan’s signature rear door handle is placed awkwardly on the C-pillar.

The running boards seem more cosmetic than functional, but manage to pull bodywork down below the midline of the wheels, again adding to the impression of mass. As with the Nissan Armada, it looks almost like a cartoon caricature from the rear three-quarter view. The Armada makes up for this with an attractive front end.

From the rear, the QX56 succeeds in presenting a strong stance. Big tires widely spaced beneath a body that starts out broad at the lower reaches and then gradually tapers in toward the top suggests solidity and road-hugging stability. The QX56 comes with LED taillights and brake lights that light up quicker and brighter than traditional bulbs.

The Infiniti QX56 is big and roomy. It offers comparable interior space as the 2006 Cadillac Escalade and Lincoln Navigator, its most direct competition. The Infiniti’s second row is particularly roomy, beating the Cadillac and Lincoln by more than three inches in second-row legroom. Indeed, the second row of the QX56 feels like sitting in first class. Expansive window glass adds to the feeling of spaciousness in the QX56.

Leather is used just as expansively throughout the cabin. The leather-trimmed front seats are almost plush, nicely bolstered with adjustable inboard armrests, and heated. Second-row bucket seats are less plush, but still adequately bolstered with adjustable inboard armrests, and heated. The shift knob is gloved and the steering wheel is wrapped in leather accented with wood inserts.

Infiniti’s full-size SUV handles quite well for such a big vehicle. There’s a modicum of body lean in corners. The steering feels precise, with good variable assist. The combination of comfortable ride and responsive handling comes from the four-wheel independent double-wishbone suspension with front and rear stabilizer bars. The independent rear suspension improves ride and handling on rough roads. It especially helps smooth the ride for those seated in the second and third rows.

An advanced rear auto-leveling air suspension (which comes standard) improves stability and ride comfort when towing or hauling cargo. The air suspension maintains a uniform ground clearance and departure angle by automatically adjusting the air pressure in the suspension’s air bladders. The QX56 is rated to tow up to 9,000 pounds with 2WD or 8,900 pounds with all-wheel drive, more than the 2006 Cadillac Escalade (8,100 pounds) or Lincoln Navigator (8,600) or Toyota Sequoia (6,500).

Nissan’s 5.6-liter, 32-valve, double overhead-cam V8 offers impressive output, rated in the QX56 at 315 horsepower at 4900 rpm and 390 pound-feet of torque at 3600 rpm. That easily trumps the Sequoia’s 282 horsepower and 325 pound-feet of torque. The Lincoln Navigator, impressively revised for 2005, offers 300 horsepower and 365 pound-feet of torque. The 2006 Cadillac Escalade has a 6.0-liter overhead-valve V8 that boasts 345 horsepower at 5200 rpm and 380 pound-feet of torque at 4000 rpm, but note the higher rpm. (An all-new Escalade is being introduced for 2007.) Towing demands high torque at low rpm and that’s where the Infiniti’s power is concentrated.

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BMW has faced this challenge with its 3-series sedans for decades, responding each time with a cautious evolutionary styling update augmented by significant engineering improvements. This approach obviously works — for BMW.But can this policy work for a newcomer? The short answer is a definite maybe.

History: The G35 was an unknown quantity when it made its appearance in mid-2002 as an ’03 model — an eager rear-drive sports sedan replacing the I35, a badge-job version of the front-drive Nissan Maxima. Suddenly, Infiniti was a real contender in a game that has belonged almost exclusively to players from Germany, particularly those hailing from Bavaria. The real exclamation point came when a G35 prevailed in a seven-car sports-sedan shootout that included — ta-da! — a BMW [“$35,000 Sports Sedans,” C/D, March 2004]. Okay, the deck was stacked slightly in the G35’s favor. To keep the playing field level by price, the BMW was a 325i rather than a 330i, thus giving away 76 horses to its Asian assailant. But never mind. How many other Japanese sedans have topped a BMW 3-series sedan in C/D comparos over the past 20 years? Clue: zero.

The 3-series reasserted its primacy in a “$35,000 Sports Sedans” rematch that included a 2006 Lexus IS350 [C/D, October 2005], and we described the G35 as “aging gracefully.” How quickly new becomes not-so-new in the car biz. But more to the point, we think it likely the updated G would have given the 330i a much stronger run for first place. Here’s why.

Leaving the cautious styling update aside for the moment, this is a distinctly more capable G35 than the original: quicker straight ahead, quicker on its feet, with a new variable-assist rack-and-pinion steering system that tells the driver more about what the front tires are doing than did the previous setup. Infiniti also offers a new active-steering option that’s touted as a response enhancer, but it wasn’t present on our test car, and in any case, we wonder whether it’s worth the extra money — $1200, at a guess — or the added weight — about 25 pounds.

Speaking of weight, like almost all new cars, the G35 scales in a little heavier than the previous edition. Infiniti says 48 pounds and lists curb weight at 3532. In our comparo a year ago, the G35 weighed 3520, and this similarly equipped ’07 version ran our needle up to 3583. Increased mass is never a good thing — you probably notice that when you step on the scales at home — but in this case there are mitigating factors. For one, the updated FM architecture, shared with the Nissan 350Z and Infiniti FX45, is 40 percent stiffer, according to Infiniti, due in part to more extensive spot and seam welding in the unibody.

For another, there’s more thrust from the car’s 3.5-liter V-6 engine, the fourth generation of Nissan’s VQ series. Although the bore and stroke specs of this oversquare design are unchanged, Nissan says the engine is 80 percent new, with a beefier bottom end, variable cam timing on the intake and exhaust valves (the previous engine was intake side only), reduced exhaust back pressure, a slightly higher compression ratio (10.6:1 versus 10.3), a higher redline (7600 rpm versus 7000), and improved coolant flow — among other tweaks. It all adds up to 306 horsepower at 6800 rpm and 268 pound-feet of torque at 5200 rpm.

The previous engine carried a 2006 rating of 298 horsepower and 260 pound-feet, so at a glance, this doesn’t look like much of an increase, particularly with a corresponding gain at the scales. However, the old power numbers were published before the Society of Automotive Engineers instituted its new and more stringent rating system, which means the output disparity between old and new is actually bigger. In addition, Nissan notes that the new engine’s breathing is enhanced by a ram effect through the dual air-intake system, to the tune of three more ponies at 60 mph.

Nissan calls this effect, and the car’s all-around acceleration characteristics, “swell,” in the sense of a wave gathering power as it moves along. Uh-huh. We took our test car to the track, where it hunkered down and dashed to 60 mph in 5.2 seconds, covering the quarter-mile in 13.9 seconds at 103. Hmm, that is swell, and considerably quicker than the last G35 we tested (0 to 60 in 5.9 seconds and the quarter in 14.6 at 98 mph) as well as just a blink behind the IS350. More impressive still, our G35 tester went to the track with fewer than 250 miles on the odo. That’s like putting an Olympic sprinter in the starting blocks in his street clothes. What’ll it do with a proper break-in? We look forward to finding out.

The power feeds through a six-speed manual gearbox that’s the personification of precise engagement — it makes BMW’s 3-series manual transmissions seem rubbery — to a limited-slip rear end and thence to the pavement via a set of 245/45-18 Bridgestone Potenza RE050A tires.

The 18-inch shoes (225/50-18 front) — the base rubber is 17-inch all-seasons — deliver grip that’s a little better than the previous G35 managed: 0.87 g versus 0.85, but neither number is impressive by the standards of this class. What is impressive is the G35’s nifty footwork on a set of switchbacks or that secret stretch of country road where you just know your transit times are world-class.

This honey can dance as fast as you can pedal, without a misstep and without punishing its partner in the ride department. Besides its more aggressive tires, the Sport 6MT employs firmer rear dampers and harder steering-rack bushings. It’s a setup that delivers Bimmer-esque compliance, and if the 3-series still holds an edge in this area, the distinctions have become paper thin.

G35 Sport models also have heftier brakes — bigger rotors, beefier single-piston calipers — that pay off in improved performance. The brake pedal felt a little long and a tad squishy, but our test car needed only 160 feet to stop from 70 mph, a number that would have been best in test in that October comparo.

Although the sheetmetal is all-new, Infiniti didn’t take any big chances with the G35’s second-gen styling. The outer blades of the grille are canted forward, the HID bixenon headlights are new, the hood has more contour, there’s a new character crease down the sides, and the rear roof*line is a little faster, with a little more down slope that takes a small bite out of rear-seat headroom. The wheelbase is unchanged at 112.2 inches, still the longest among the leaders in this class. However, overall length has stretched by a half-inch, width increases by 0.8 inch, and at 59.8 inches front and rear, the track has expanded by 0.7 and 0.5 inch, respectively. The roofline, meanwhile, is down by a half-inch.

The look that emerges is a little more tightly wrapped and athletic, particularly going away, but it takes a practiced eye to perceive its newness.

The interior is a different story. Upgraded materials, a superb new Bose audio option, an attractive and highly legible new instrument package, nicely placed switches with an exceptionally positive operational feel, and a sporty steering wheel with hand-stitched leather all lend an upscale feel that wasn’t really part of the first-generation G35. We’re not unanimously seduced by the aluminum interior trim — to some, at least, the optional straight-grain rosewood veneer might be preferable — and the front buckets aren’t quite in the BMW league in lateral support. On the other hand, there’s lots of power adjustability, there’s plenty of room front and rear — thanks to that long wheelbase — and interior noise is down in most operating modes, save for wide-open throttle.

Money: We don’t know. As usual, Infiniti sources will say only that they expect the new G to maintain a “highly competitive” price position. The ’06 G35 started at $31,850. We estimate the broadened ’07 range — G35, G35 Journey, G35x AWD, G35 Sport, G35 Sport 6MT — will start at about $32,500 and that our test car would retail for about $36,000, right about where 330i pricing starts.

It never gets any cheaper. But if our estimates are anywhere close to accurate, the G35 will still be one of the best buys in its class. Can best in class be far away? We smell another comparo brewing.

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The 2006 Infiniti G35 Coupe adds new bi-xenon headlights, revised taillights and available Rear Active Steer. The Premium Package offers available Intelligent Key and Bluetooth Hands-Free Phone system. Coupe Sport Package changes include a unique front fascia, side sills, and a revised optional rear spoiler. The G35 Sedan adds Bluetooth Hands-Free Phone System and optional satellite radio to the Premium Package.

The G35 is a pleasant car but has some drawbacks. Its 3.5-liter V6 engine is strong, and the automatic is exceptionally smooth. Routine handling is fairly agile, but at its limits the tail slid out a bit too easily on our test car, even with the standard stability control. The ride is comfortable and quiet. The power-seat controls are poorly located and confusing to use, as are a few other controls. A coupe version with a six-speed manual is available. All-wheel drive on the sedan helps with snow traction. Infiniti has revised the interior with better materials and a tilt-and-telescoping steering wheel. Expect a freshening for 2007.

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