My dad is looking at getting an IS250 for my mom for their 25th anniversary, and since he actually knows less than nothing about cars, I'm doing all the research and the like for him. I decided to cross-shop it with it's competitors, so my first stop was obviously Infiniti
While the G37 is a lot more car... it's also unfortunately a lot more money, so it got crossed off pretty quick.
Next stop was BMW, to check out the 3 series. They have some pretty impressive incentives right now, which made the 323i the cheapest of all the cars I'm looking at, but... then I sat in it. The interior is honestly un-acceptably bad. The seats don't feel nice at all or fit me even remotely well (the G37 had fantastic seats on the other hand), and the interior is really bland and made me feel like I'm in a Lada. I was curious if this is a fault of the low model 323i, so I sat in the 335i, and it was the same story! The seats felt a bit nicer, since they were the leather and not the leatherette, but the shape still sucked, and the interior was just as lame.
I've lusted of the 335i coupe for the longest time, due to the great styling, power and handling, but I honestly never knew the interior was THIS bad.
Oh well, gonna check out the Merc, Audi and finally the Lex (bastards have barely any dealers here) and see what happens, but the way things are looking, the IS250 may actually be the best choice.