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Post by Kasey Kagawa and Zerin Dube

We here at Dubspeed Driven have seen many things in our time, but this recent action by certain members of the automotive industry have forced us to act. The parties responsible should be ashamed of themselves for shamelessly promoting a problem that is slowly sucking the life out of the automotive industry. Not the German Horsepower Wars or the return of the Muscle Car Wars, those are awesome and we totally support those conflicts. We’re talking about the endless battle between the automotive magazines to see who can get away with breaking embargoes on cars that are set to debut at upcoming auto shows.

The latest victim in this bloody war is the 2008 Infiniti G37. Sure, it looks absolutely identical from the side or back, but it’s got new headlights, a redesigned lower front air intake, and a new 3.7L version of the VQ35HR currently in the G35 that’s estimated to produce 330 HP and 270 lb-ft of torque. That’s not much, but it’s enough to make this actually somewhat important, as it’s the latest “me too” effort from Infiniti in their attempts to be just like BMW, with their new horizontally-oriented headlights and lower air intake that looks suspiciously similar to the current chins offered on the BMW 5 and 3-series. It’s set to go up against the BMW 335i, just like the last one was designed to compete with the 330i, and just like the last one, it’ll probably be faster, cheaper, with more toys for your dollar, but not as good a place to be in or as fun to drive.

But back to the issue at hand. The auto industry doesn’t care if the magazines break an embargo, and if they do, they are powerless to prevent it. No, the true victims in this conflict are us, the general public who go attend auto shows hoping to see something new and unexpected, but how can we be surprised when everything’s been online for weeks and the only surprises left are what the interior of the trunk looks like and what colors it comes in? Please, print magazines, think of those you hurt most with your reckless embargo breaking. Think of the children.

2008 Infiniti Coupe First Drive [Automobile]