I’ll let you in on a little secret: the best Infiniti ever was the original one, the Q-ship, the first Q45. But there hasn’t been a truly cool big sedan from Infiniti in some time. Can whatever this concept turns into change that?
Meet the Infiniti Q Inspiration Concept. So far the only pics I’ve found are on Carscoops and Sports Car Illustrated, but I expect more will drop before it debuts at the Detroit Auto Show. It’s said to preview a new flagship sedan design for Infiniti, as well as the new “form language” for the rest of the brand.
Here’s a quote:
Karim Habib, INFINITI Executive Design Director added, “We aim to take traditional sedan architecture to its next stage of evolution. The Q Inspiration offers an alternative form; something more flowing in appearance and muscular in stance, with an unusually long and balanced cabin. Experimenting with new proportions in an established segment with the arrival of smarter, compact powertrains, the Q Inspiration features a shorter hood and elongated body, with all the benefits to interior wellbeing, comfort and space that this layout entails.”
Hard to say if it executes on that without seeing more, but I dig what I see so far. It’s very Audi A7-ish, which is never a bad thing, albeit this one’s sleeker. And with any luck it will also preview some of the cool stuff Nissan has been doing lately with variable compression ratio engines.
Also, I’m not surprised that we’re seeing more and more sedans take this tapered fastback coupe-type shape. As you’ve no doubt heard, sedans are getting killed by SUVs and crossovers in the marketplace, so sedans have to find some way to be relevant again. That may mean more aggressive designs, or even hatches instead of trunks like the similarly shaped Kia Stinger has.
Anyway, we’ll see more at Detroit or likely before it, but this is an interesting start.