The compact luxury sedan market is a tough place to be these days. Relatively low margins and a focus on sales, every dealer will tell you their car is better than the competition. Sure BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz thrive in these environments, but what about the underdogs?  These are the underrated road warriors that refuse to share platforms and are truly designed to compete and perform.

Take out the badge-engineered “luxury” sedans – get rid of the Lexus ES, Lincoln MKZ, and Acura TL. What you’re left with are the big six. You already know the aforementioned three’s compact luxury offerings – now add the Lexus IS, Cadillac ATS, and Infiniti Q50 to the equation and you’ve got the perfect mix. If all these six cars showed up to a “meet”, I would hope they respect each other's car buying decisions. 

We had a chance to test drive one of the underdogs in this segment – the Q50. For 2014, the sedan was re-named from its previous G35/37 monikers. Also new for this year is the inclusion of a hybrid drivetrain, which is the one we were provided with. Here are the specs of the vehicle we were provided with:

LIKES

Performance

It’s classic. It’s what one expects when they get behind the wheel of any of its G35/G37 predecessors. That powerful 3.7-litre engine coupled with the quick-shifting seven-speed transmission to deliver instant acceleration without much struggle. Try accelerating to a 100 kilometers an hour and enjoy those sharp G-forces as the engine pushes upwards of 7000 RPMs and gets you to the said speed in just over five seconds. 

Your soundtrack? That classic wailing sound that you hear every time a late 20-something year old West Indian kid revs past you in his 2006 G35 that he bought used off some guy on Kijiji. Some things don’t change – and they shouldn’t. That classic engine sound is raw, unfiltered, and naturally-aspirated.

Decent Space

What’s unique about the Q50 is it perfectly fits for the younger single buyer or small family unit. It’s slightly bigger than most compact luxury sedans, but isn’t big enough to be classified as a mid-size. The Q50 is eight inches longer than the C-Class and offers a combined five more inches of legroom for front and rear passengers. We took the car on a road trip from Toronto to Niagara Falls with four adult passengers and there was very little griping from the three relegated to the back seats. 

DISLIKES

Design

It’s very rare that we grill a redesigned car, but after a lot of thought, I couldn’t get past the fact that there’s nothing appealing about it. Its bland design makes one wonder whether it was originally intended to be a Nissan? The LEDs within the lights look tasteful, but there aren’t enough LEDs in the headlights to make a distinct impact. While the taillights look amazing in the dark, they aren’t that spectacular in the daytime.

The design from the rear looks too similar to non-luxury counterparts like the Mazda6 – which is usually an issue if you’re trying to sell a smaller car for a $13,000 premium. One thing I did like was that the large grille resembles that of the Infiniti Essence concept that we drooled over a few years ago. 

Exceptional Sound System, Average Interior Quality

The Q50S and Hybrid models come with one of the best sound systems in this segment – a 14-speaker Bose audio system. While the sound system is great, we found that the car’s interiors – especially the door panels – don’t deal too well with mid-to-heavy bass. The door panels tend to pulsate a bit more than usual, causing a soft vibration that can be heard as the audio plays. This would only be an issue if you listen to bass-rich audio like techno, electronic, rap or hip hop. If jazz or talk radio is your thing – then this shouldn’t be an issue. Additionally, the base model doesn’t have the Bose sound system, so it might deal a bit better with those interior tremors.