If you’ve been reading Winding Road, you have probably seen our Comfort and Involvement Index. If not, here’s a brief primer: The Involvement Index quantifies the amount of man/machine involvement demonstrated by each tested vehicle. The overall score, based on a 100-point scale, gives a great approximation of how much fun a vehicle is to drive, overall.
The Comfort Index measures overall vehicle comfort—in driving character, wealth or paucity of luxury and technology features, fit and finish, roominess, etc. The overall score, based on a 100-point scale, gives a great approximation of how comfortable a vehicle is to drive.
Too add a little bit of detail to each score, we show “star scores” (between zero and five stars, with five being the best) for more granular categories within the larger frameworks of Comfort and Involvement, too.
Then, to round out each listing, you’ll find a quick blurb summarizing all of the scores for the car, and our experience of it.
We’ll be updating you on new entries to our indices as we drive/review the vehicles (and will eventually get around to putting all of these scores on WindingRoad.com). In the meantime, if you’d like to see the full (huge) list of every score, check out the latest issue of the magazine.
Car: 2012 Infiniti QX56
Involvement: 69
Variety: **
Controls: **
Drivetrain: **
Handling: *
Character: *
Involvement Notes: Quite a lot of fun for such a big vehicle. Big V-8 delivers more than enough grunt all over the rev range. Surprisingly agile, despite its enormous size, the QX’s primary fault is in its so-so steering, and overall lack of an involving character. Then again, since when are vehicles of this size meant to be involving?
Comfort: 81
Visibility: ***
Space/Seating: ***
Ride/Handling: *
Acoustics: ***
Controls: ***
Comfort Notes: One of the best luxury SUVs on the market, the QX has a beautifully crafted interior, super-plush seats, and a quiet cabin with a powerful stereo. The problem is, the ride is overly firm, and tends to transmit too much noise into the cabin. Still, there are worse ways to road trip.