Huge headlamps make the Q especially distinctive from the front. There are 18 bulbs within two big sealed lenses shaped like right triangles with fat edges. The four largest bulbs are for high beams and parking. The other 14 are high-intensity xenon-fired low beams, seven highly visible bulbs on each side forming a circle like a Gatling gun.

Such a radical appearance brings radical expectations, the ability to turn night into day. Infiniti claims the Q45's lights are among the world's most powerful, twice as bright as those on the $73,000 Mercedes-Benz S-Class ("Warning: high voltage," declares the manual). Infiniti says the low beams are the industry's brightest, based on lumens (a measure of light intensity), and have a better dispersion pattern, providing long range illumination in a narrow beam, as well as wide-angle illumination in the foreground, making fog lamps unnecessary. (Most factory fog lamps are nearly worthless anyway.) The pattern of the low beams is designed to reduce glare to oncoming drivers by cutting the beam sharply on the left side. A switch on the dash allows the driver to adjust the angle of the headlights, a feature we liked. Four positions seemed like overkill, though; we either aimed them high for max visibility or low for traffic or fog (they do indeed eliminate the need for auxiliary fog lamps). The problem will be that it's easy to forget where the lights are aimed.

Overall, the front view of the Q presents a handsome shape, a sweep, as if the lines were poured on. No chrome. A wide-mouthed grille, fully but sparsely filled by four long horizontal titanium-colored slats, with a chrome Infiniti emblem in the center. A subtle front bumper and fascia includes natural-looking air intakes at the bottom.

The silhouette suggests the Chrysler Concorde, although Infiniti reps were slightly aghast when we suggested that. We think the rear end is clean and nice. You can see Nissan all over it: Altima or Maxima on a luxury scale, and a bit racier. The roof seems to have more rake when viewed from the rear.

The wheels are a nice touch, a confident statement, spidery six-spoke 17-inch alloys or more spidery eight-spoke 18s.