Well friends, after 9 long years with my 07 G35 S, it was time to say good bye to it yesterday.

I've definitely loved this car, which is why I kept it so long. Couldn't find anything I wanted to spend money on. So in my search for a replacement, I feel I test drove EVERYTHING worthwhile. Here's my summary:

2013 Lexus GS350- Very nice interior, but ridiculously boring to drive. Didn't seem sporty at all.

2012 CTS-v (drove one with 595hp). Seats..... sucked. Like literally the least comfortable seats I've sat in. Other than that, interior pretty nice. Honestly disappointed with the acceleration. I was expecting (holy crap, hold on, ridiculous mode) acceleration. And it was fast, but not as fast as I thought it would be. Reason being: From a very slow (10 mph) roll, it wouldn't drop into first gear. Then when I tried to go from a stop in first gear..... just smoked the tires.

2012 Audi S4- VERY fun to drive. It had immediate torque. That supercharged six felt more powerful than the SS even. The DCT was the best "auto" I've driven. Interior was pretty small and not that impressive. Why I didn't buy it- like 30% of those DCT blow up in the first 30k miles... pass.

2012 BMW M3 SMG- Immediately hated driving this car. No torque, was a very uncomfortable ride. The transmission wasn't remotely smooth. Nothing like the S4. On paper the M3 is faster, but didn't feel it. Seats/interior/exterior were great. Exhaust sounded AMAZING (very Ferrari like).

2012 BMW 550i m sport- Great car all around. Great seats. Almost made an offer on one until I started researching it. The 1 thing I didn't like was a strange hesitation (like half a second) when you hit the gas. Then I found out about the nightmares people have with the twin turbo v8 and HUGE recall going on.

2012 Jaguar XF supercharged- Looks amazing. Decent interior. Drive- AMAZING. Ridiculously fast. On paper slower than the CTS-v but felt faster. Handles/rides great. Best brake feel I've driven. Why I didn't buy- reliability and cost to fix. There's a reason why this $80k car sells used for under $30k.

Infiniti M37- I liked this car a lot. Extremely comfortable and nice interior. Awesome stereo. Handles and rides well. Just feels underpowered. A used M56 (420hp v8) was on my short list, but couldn't find one anywhere near me to finally test drive. And found the stupid deals on 2015 SS before I had a chance to check one out.


And the winner is???????

2015 Chevy SS- Car checked every box for me (except 1). Drives/handles great. Comfortable. Has all the options I'm looking for. It's stretching my budget, but I got a NEW car vs. 3-4 yr old ones. The 1 box I don't like.... fuel economy. Got an AWESOME deal..... over $13,000 off sticker (huge GM rebate right now on remaining 2015s plus big discount)

For those who don't know about this car, they only sold 2500 of them last year. It has the LS3 corvette engine detuned to 415hp. It's got the magnetic ride suspension out of the Cadillac CTSv. It also comes 1 way: Fully loaded. Navigation, memory heated/cooled seats. Lane departure warning, parking assist (backs into parking spots and a parallel parks itself), crash alert, blind spot monitoring, remote star, Bose stereo, Heads up Display, 4G wifi hot spot, etc.

I can even monitor how much fuel, air in the tires, oil life, etc from an app on my phone. I can locate the car anywhere in the country, as well as remote start it from the app while I'm anywhere.

It's strange, the car is definitely larger than the G35 but feels more nimble.