It feels like an understatement to say that things aren’t great at Infiniti right now from a product perspective. With the brand’s compact crossovers bowing out soon with no immediate replacement, new cars are seriously needed. How about one that promises fun? That’s right, Infiniti is reportedly working on a new Q50, one that brings back something missing from the Infiniti lineup since 2015.
It’s easy to forget that Infiniti was absolutely crushing it in the 2000s, and the G35 walked up to the E46 BMW 3 Series and gave it a fat lip on picture day. A standard 3.5-liter V6 with outputs ranging from 260 horsepower in early sedans to 298 horsepower in later Rev Up models, a notchy six-speed manual transmission, available reclining rear seats in sedans, a capable chassis for the time with multi-link suspension at all four corners and intensive use of aluminum arms, and a base price that undercut the German competition. I actually owned a G35 sedan with a six-speed manual and it was a blast, and now the brand seems willing to channel some of that greatness.
Automotive News reports that a next-generation Q50 was teased by the brand at a dealer convention in Las Vegas on Wednesday, and not only is it on-track for a 2027 arrival, it’s sticking to a classic formula, and I’m not just talking about the claim that “Infiniti teased the low-slung model in a video that revealed a swoopy profile, slender headlights and Skyline-styled circular taillights,” because what’s allegedly under the hood is stuff we’re all familiar with:
According to people familiar with the vehicle, the Q50 will switch to rear-wheel drive and be offered with a manual transmission. A Red Sport performance trim is being considered.
“The new Q50 is a visceral car with a twin-turbo that screams,” one of the people said. “It’s not practical, but it is fun.”
Offering a row-your-own gearbox would make a ton of sense considering the FM platform has already offered the VR30DDTT three-liter twin-turbocharged V6 and a six-speed manual transmission in the Nissan Z, and a 2019 SEMA build by Concept Z Performance found that Nissan’s CD009 six-speed manual gearbox pretty much bolts up to a late-model Infiniti Q60. With nothing else in the segment this side of a BMW M3 or Cadillac CT4-V Blackwing offering a stick-shift, it would be a unique selling point for Infiniti.
However, just because it sounds like Infiniti is cooking with leftovers doesn’t mean there’s no possibility of adding a bit of kick to the seasoning mix. A source told Automotive News that “the Q50’s engine could be tweaked to deliver more than 450 hp,” a spicy number that would put the next Q50 closer to the V8-powered Lexus IS 500 F Sport Performance on output and keep it competitive against German rocketships like the BMW M340i and Audi S4.
Of course, there’s still some trepidation to be had here, because by 2027, the components purportedly underneath would be really old. Could a new car on what would then be a 26-year-old platform with an eleven-year-old engine be good? Well, with the right tuning and steering hardware, it might be. An original G35 is still a fun car to drive, whereas the softer previous-generation Q50 lost a good chunk of its grandfather’s immediacy while gaining optional and unwelcome steer-by-wire that was originally mandatory on the fastest trims.
If the next Infiniti Q50 is to be a hit, it’ll need to stick to the formula that made the G35 successful: performance, value, and luxury, in that order. Infiniti doesn’t really have the hardware to compete with the latest sports sedans on refinement, but it absolutely has the ingredients to beat them on thrills. I guess we’ll know in two years whether this is just a Gen X nostalgia play or the next great enthusiast sedan.
Top graphic image: Infiniti
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I despise the idea that anything old must be bad.
The original aircooled 911 was in production for 35 years, with incremental improvements throughout.
Absolutely nobody would say it sucked because it was old. Meanwhile car manufacturers are criticized when their platforms get old, like Chrysler with the Challenger or their Caravan. Why? As long as the company is doing subtle tweaks to make it even better, why does it matter?
As long as the product remains good and/or offers something nobody else does, I don’t care about being new. I’d even prefer older if it means greater durability, serviceability, and cheaper costs or offers better connection and less tech nonsense.
Swan song of the VQ, Infiniti sports sedan, and maybe Infiniti itself.
Sure beats the drone of their variable displacement four-cylinder attached to the CVT in a QX55.
Make the Red Sport a track day special with an oil cooler and a diff cooler. Put the biggest front brakes that will fit under 19 inch wheels. Massage the suspension a bit. Come close to the performance on-track of a Camaro SS 1LE. I want that.
What will actually happen is a spoiler, some badging, and a bit of (probably fake) carbon fiber trim in the interior.
Interesting announcement on the heels of the cancellation of the Acura TLX. Also the IS sounds like its not long for this world, and the ES is going more EV. Add to that the demise of the LX Charger (speaking of sedans selling well on 26 year old bones) and yeah, there may be a niche for this if they get the styling, performance, and price right.
I like Infiniti coupes and sedans, it’s just a shame they are all old and tired compared to the competition. Add to the fact they are a bit boring to drive, it’s just not a compelling buy for an enthusiast. If I could get the newer Q60 coupe with a stick it would be in my garage. I know I’m a rare outlier, but I do really love their looks. Same applies to the RC 350 F Sport.
If you could go through the Guardian of Forever, buy a new car from 2000, and bring it into the present day, it will still be pretty competitive.Gas mileage might not look so great, the tech would be out of date (hope you still have CDs!), and you’d have to provide your own backup camera. But it would still do 90% or more of what you wanted it to do with no problems. So I don’t think that, “Oh, but the platform is old!” is a serious objection today, when cars are built better than ever and most of the advances are coming from add-on technology instead of the drivetrain or frame.
Man in your reality I would travel back to the 80’s/90’s and get me a minty MR2, first or second generation.
Scrap the Infiniti brand and just call it a Nissan Skyline GT.
They might even sell some that way.
This. The Skyline model name carries more recognition than the entire Infiniti brand name.
I wouldn’t go that far. In car circles I’d say it definately carries more respect. But in the general population I think you’d be hard press to find too many average people who know what a skyline was. And how the name has bounced around from S, C, R and V bodies.
Nobody outside of car enthusiasts like us knows what the hell a “Skyline”, “Silvia” or “Fairlady” are. Just because we’re part of a community that has heard those names for ages doesn’t mean everybody does.
That’s precisely one if the biggest mistakes a car manufacturer can make.
If you don’t believe me, ask Mitsubishi how well the new “Eclipse” sold.
New Eclipse didn’t sell poorly because no one knew what it was; it sold poorly because it was garbage.
Both things can be true at the same time.
Ha, true.
If they renamed Infiniti into Skyline, first of all, they’d lose what sliver of recognition that name has for the general public. No normal person knows what in hell a ‘Skyline’ is and they’d just wonder why they’d want a car named after a fast food chain that puts chili on spaghetti.
The extremely small number of people who do know what a Skyline is would be seething with rage that their beloved Skyline nameplate is now being used on bland crossovers and other things.
I’m agreeing with the post which says to rename it a Nissan Skyline. Not to rebrand Infiniti as Skyline. Quite different things.
Edit: I enjoyed the Skyline Chili reference! It’s been a minute.
I would understand it, but there’s too much GT-R confusion with skyline over here now. People would think it was a disappointing R36.
To avoid that they should build a GT-R version, with awd and 600 HP – and a manual transmission, to give it a reason to exist in the age of 1000+ HP EVs.
Wow. That’s actually a genuinely good idea.
Or shitcan Infiniti and rename the enterprise Skyline. I’m so over made up doofus names. Acura. WTF is that. Lexus sort of works but not really.
Or call it a g35/37/40, I’d wager more potential buyers would recognize that than skyline. The whole everything is a Qxx is some of the dumber re-rebranding I’ve seen.
My advise to Nissan: do it. Make it one that makes the journalists write positive reviews, how good it is to drive.
At the same time, build a crossover on the same platform. That should be still good to drive (compared to other similar crossovers), but a bit comfier than the sedan, to be more fitting to the taste of the average people.
You mean like the FX?
I don’t know how good those were, Infiniti never got really poular here (and I think it’s the same for the whole of Europe), but those were at least somewhat special, compared to their “Rogue-based” current lineup.
So maybe yes?
Then build a wagon out of it, with a diesel engine and a manual transmission, available in brown. You’ll sell like two of them, but everyone will remember.
Nissan did build Skyline wagons from the 2nd generation in the 60s to the seventh gen in the 80s – and later the Stagea derivative – – so it’s not totally out of character for the brand.
It’s out of character for the US. I don’t think they have ever offered an Infinity wagon, and I don’t think they’ve had a Nissan wagon since maybe an old Maxima or Stanza in the 80s(?).
Ironically, when it came down to buying my first new car in 2004, the G35 6MT was the runner-up and the only other car I test drove. But I ended up buying the diesel manual wagon (in blue). Had they offered a G35 wagon, the outcome may have been different.
Was this diesel manual wagon an MK4 Jetta TDI?
My Sis had a Blue one after her Red one was wrecked by a texting driver.
She loved that little wagon until everyone learned it was a gross polluter.
I had a 2005 6MT G35 sedan in blue, basically the car pictured, and it was a great car, but the V6/turbo-4 Mustang and Camaro got so good that it kind of killed that market for Infiniti (if anyone was too much of an image snob for a Mustang or Camaro they were probably too much of an image snob for an Infiniti and were going to get a BMW anyway). Now that the Camaro is dead and there is no stick on the base Mustang this market may be back.
I didn’t believe your last line and had to go look. That’s crazy that Ford killed off the manual Ecoboost!
They didn’t even ask me first.
That’s too bad! The EcoBoost + 6MT was a fun, well-balanced sports car.
Even more appalling is that, unless you get the Performance Pack on the EcoBoost + 10AT, you lose paddle shifters. And there’s no manual gate on the shifter, so you have no way to control your gears. This was the case on the prior S550 and the current S650. Pretty inexcusable for a sports car, if you ask me.
“Swoopy profile” So it’ll still be butt-ugly like all Infinitis for the past 20 years.
I live in a place where there aren’t a whole lot of luxury cars, we don’t have a lot of dealerships nearby, as the closest semi-major city is 45 miles away. But they still exist and are a daily occurrence.
I never, ever see modern Infinities. Like, ever. I’m a religious reader of this site, but even then I’m usually confused as to what models are even left, what the fucking names of those models ever were (lol, thanks Johann), and who is actually buying them. Acura also struggles but at least those have the tagline of “fancy Honda” that a lot of people can get behind as an experience. Fancy Nissan just doesn’t have the same cache as it used to.
I live outside Columbus Ohio and I very rarely see a new Infiniti myself. I see more G35 and G37s than new Q50 or Q60s
I am fairly certain everything is named with a Q and if it is QX it is a crossover. An meaningless alphabet soup, not unlike Acura or Cadillac before they stole Infiniti’s Q and stuck it on the end off all there BEV’s; which sound like new drug names.
Ask your doctor if Celestiq is right for you.
Go to any National, Avis, or Hertz lot and you will see where they reside among a sea of Altimas and Malibus
Who in this space even thinks of this company anymore? It would have to be seriously good to pull buyers, which it won’t be, particularly if it’s got that steer-by-wire BS.
I honestly forget about Infiniti all the time
Guessing this is first step to start trying to turn that (common) reaction around. Remember Cadillac launching the CTS (and V, etc) really lit a new fire under the brand
Same
Except when I watch “Toy Story”
Toy Story inspired me to go beyond Infiniti.
When you think about it infinity is just an 8 that is to lazy to stand up.
Figure eight is really great…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCGNUo-XQJ8
I’m in the market and I won’t consider Infiniti or Nissan due to the current state of the company.
That’s a good point, too—it’s not just the product, it’s whether the company has a future. If the company was in solid shape, but the product was the same, would you consider them?
So are they gonna do the thing that carmakers do where they only offer the manual in the poverty spec without popular options being available?
Or are they gonna do the other thing that carmakers do and only offer the manual in a full-zoot limited production trim that dealers will treat as if it were a Bugatti warranting a hefty markup?
A poverty spec luxury sedan? That might be exactly what the enthusiast ordered!
The new Integra is the opposite. Have to step up to the top trim for the manual.
I think it was the same on the Civic while they still offered a manual. Or maybe just the Civic Sport, that’s the one I was shopping for last year.
It’s a funny predicament. There isn’t enough demand to warrant the complexity and development cost for manuals on every trim option, so which do you do? Go after the people who complain about manuals being too expensive or complain that they can’t get their manual with any options?
If you go for both, you lose money on everything. If you go for one, you have the other group mad. Lose Lose
Watching manuals go from the base option to something that’s paywalled behind the highest trims in the last 10-15 years has been depressing
While I would love to see every model available with a manual, if they are going to restrict the manual, put me in the camp of preferring the paywalled top-level trim.
Yeah, same. I was always annoyed that I could only get a manual transmission if I gave up all the goodies! I’m happy to pay more for the good transmission. (Though, obviously, I’d prefer it was available to anyone.)
Launching new models? Waste of money – just give the lower trim levels of the Armada a different name and keep selling that forever —– Chrysler, probably
Something tells me Infiniti may not be as successful at the “cooking with leftovers” method as Porsche. A 930 911 this thing is not.
This would have been news 10 years ago or even 5 years ago.
So much can change before next Tuesday when the wind changes.
Add it to the list of things that are “only two years away!”
I feel like new vehicle models have somehow turned into raw NBA prospects from overseas. In that they are often “two years away from being two years away”. And also about as likely to actually happen.
As others have said: I think this is too little, too late. Maybe a decade ago this could have worked better, but unless they make it an absolute looker, and really, REALLY undercut on price, I have a hard time believing people will want to buy these. At least the platform and engine are old, so they’ll (hopefully) be at least a little bit more reliable than most of the other Nissans that have come out recently.
I think it’s way too late for Infiniti and that the market for this is smaller than they think it is but I’ll be damned if I don’t respect the Hail Mary. I assume it’s the manual from the Z. If that’s the case I hope they’ve worked on it…numerous folks have complained that 2-3 shift in the Z is a grind-ey disaster.
Surely this will completely turn around Infiniti’s fortunes – car enthusiasts are never wrong about this kind of thing.
The people who actually want this will buy a total of like 3. Everyone else will go lease a German sedan or get the automatic. It’ll go away, and we’ll all lament that they don’t make cars like they used to anymore, as the prophecy foretold.
Or shop for a WRX, instead.
Nah everyone hates the current WRX
Sad hatchback noises.
The GR Corolla really stole the WRX’s lunch money. I see way more of those than I do the current WRX.
Regional.
WRX, GolfR, and CTR each vastly outnumber the GR Corolla I see on the road.
I would say that Subaru needs to fire their entire exterior design team, but they keep selling boat loads of the things, so I must be wrong somehow. Adding more ugly on top of last gen’s ugly seems to be a viable strategy for Subaru.
I think a manual for a sport sedan is more about giving buyers the impression, that what they have is a car made for real enthusiasts: it’s also available with a manual transmission! (While they buy it with an automatic, because they want to use it as a normal car.)
Yes, we’ll all buy one. Used. In 5-10 years. 🙂
Yea this is cool and all, but a performance car made for automotive journalists will not save infinity.
… that’s my point.
Infinity will go on forever. Infiniti? Probably not.
(sorry)
If Infiniti is going to die, they might as well make a couple hundred manual equipped sports sedans for us to buy errantly ten years from now. Go out with an enthusiast-enabling bang versus a uncompetitive crossover-blob whimper, I say.
From a business standpoint it’s incredibly stupid. From a vibes standpoint it rules.
And also helpful from a legacy standpoint.
Pontiac may have died, but it went out with a couple of products like the G8, that were not only good, but stood for what Pontiac’s supposed mission statement was. Cars like the G8 make people look back at the death of Pontiac as a travesty, versus a mercy killing. Imagine if Pontiac spent their final five years building nothing but the Pontiac Torrent. We would have been begging for it to be euthanized.
It’s not sound business, but if you’re going to go down with the ship, do what is noble and right.
I remember rolling around in my friend’s G6 hard top convertible in college. We’d put the roof down, find whoever was the most sober out of the bunch, cram as many people in as we could, and cruise around town. Good times. This is what I will choose to remember Pontiac for until the end of my days.
Yeah, by the time Saturn was put down it was nothing but a soulless husk of badge engineering with no semblance of the original vision.
Signed, guy who drove an SL2 for 16 years.
Is it? I don’t ever see Infiniti SUVs on the road, so it’s not like they’re raking in the dough in that segment.
This may not save them, but they have to try something and this project is something they should be able to complete cheaply.
I see them everywhere, I think it’s a geographic thing. Believe it or not they’re quite popular in the DC area.
I definitely see more Wagoneers than Infinitis of any type, and it’s not like Wagoneers are terribly popular. Some days I see more Ineos Grenadiers than Infinitis.
if I do see an Infinity, it’s usually a not new sedan with rolled fenders and terrible camber.
I keep forgetting Infiniti exists.
I’m not sure this will help, but I respect the effort.
So many of the “entry level luxury” brands could shutter and most probably wouldn’t notice as bloated as the segment is. Acura; Audi (the gap between VW & Porsche in the VAG pecking order is less than it used to be, and audi doesn’t have much of an identity beyond “fancier VW” ); Buick (especially with their ugly crop of models imported from east Asia) and Gmc by extension – Ford does fine with two brands, gm could/should do the same; arguably Chrysler; aforementioned Infiniti; Lancia (though we don’t see them in the US); and Maserati off the top of my head.
I’m sorry but thinking it would somehow be a good idea for GM to shutter Buick and GMC is madness.
I kinda get the point on some of the brands, Buick just doesn’t have any identifiable brand character in the US and hasn’t for a long time, but the suggestion of GMC is whack. GMC is definitely a sleeper luxury brand, especially with Denali spec and I’d bet does a whole lotta business
Whether you think they have any “brand character” or not, they’re selling tons of cars and are doing better than they have in years. You don’t shutter a brand because you don’t like their vibes.
Buick is doing a lot better, and GM should soldier on with it, but it’ll be interesting to see what they do about 3/4 of their lineup being imported…
Honestly their MSRPs are reasonable and they sell so many cars they can probably afford to raise their prices a little and be just fine. They only need to tough it out another 3 years or however long it takes for the thing to happen.
They are indeed doing better, inexplicably. They must have absurdly-good lease deals for folks to be driving those fugly robo-shark cars off the lot. The trax corporate twin isn’t much better – I keep thinking they’re Nissans or Hyundais, so the copycat role has somehow reversed to gm being the mimic – but the name is better-known. They also look nearly the size of an equinox now, which itself looks about the size of a blazer.
If someone was to report on here that GMC is the most profitable brand in the entire automotive world, I wouldn’t even bat an eye. GM sells an absolute crapload of GMCs, which are just expensive Chevys. I get that doesn’t appear to have a real purpose, but as long as people are throwing wads of cash at GM for GMCs, they’d be insane to move on.
Not really. They could slap Denial (deliberately using the anagram) badges on a chevy and no one would know the difference. The narrow-minded folk who gravitate to those don’t even recognize there are different models, they expect them all to be a Yukon with shiny grilles, even on the terrain and acadia (I’ve witnessed this countless times, it’s almost sad).
GM could easily borrow Ford’s very successful recipe for their top trims: King Ranch and Platinum serve Ford trucks’ (sub)rural and (sub)urban luxury customers respectively. High Country is chevy’s copycat King Ranch, so Denial does what it already is doing as the urban-focused dark-interior shiny-baubled-exterior trim counterpart to Platinum. Both still chevy-branded, but tailored for specific customers without needing to support a redundant brand.
Plus then gm could report their sales numbers under just chevy and caddy, which would strengthen both brands. Which is probably why they wouldn’t and haven’t bothered, because gm adores having brand bloat.
There is a noticeable uptick in quality from Chevy to GMC. I’m not a GM person whatsoever, but it’s hard to deny that GMCs are nicer places to be.
They’re made on the same manufacturing lines. A High Country is essentially indistinguishable in material quality from an equivalent Denial and even an escalade. It’s down to just which interiors are installed in which vehicles.
Ummmm, Buick is doing better now than it has in many many years. Those “ugly east asian” models are drawing younger American buyers than Buick has seen since they tried to selll the Reatta to young adults. They are seeing growth when many brands are seeing declines. Those ugly models are SAVING Buick.
I looked at Buick recently, but no hybrid immediately removed any interest.
I’m quite aware, and I am genuinely befuddled by it. I suspect they appeal to folks who think an Urus looks appealing (it doesn’t). I also suspect gm is going crazy with lease deals on them, and/or they have a financing approval algorithm setup similar to Mitsubishi, Kia/Hyundai, and Nissan: Pulse and a realistic-looking ID? Approved!
Don’t be deceived by percentages though. Having double or triple digit percentage growth may just mean sales were abysmal previously, and they’re back to “normal” levels.
Y’all know me, still the same old G. But I’ve been low-key, hated on by most of these drivers with credit scores in the low 3’s, mad at me because all they see is a sea full of Q-80s!
Did y’all think I’ma let my rep slip, let my sales dip? Bro, please, you better sign up for the next tease. Who you think brought you power in the high 3s, prices so low that you won’t sneeze, made you forget about the Bimmer 3’s, Mercedes C’s, told all the Germans they could check deez?
Now who wants to f*ck around with G and turn G back to the old G?
This is not the place I’d expect a Dr. Dre parody about Infinitis, but I’m here for it.
That was a mid effort (as my kids would say), but the timing was 100% right for the car 🙂
That would be extremely cool. But if they don’t have a mainstream compact luxury crossover they will be in trouble (ok more trouble). But I for one have zero problems with a new car using old bones if the bones are good and the car is fun. We have waaaaaaay to much focus on new new new as a society.
I don’t think Infiniti will still be around in 2027
I love the idea, but isn’t this just a Kia Stinger with Renault build quality?
On the other hand, if this car convinces Stellantis to make the Six-Pack Charger available with a manual, I’d love it more.
No manual in a Stinger. AND they don’t make it anymore.
Oh, was it the Hyundai version? Gee-something?
You’re right! The Genesis G70 had a manual but only in the 2.0t. But I don’t think that exists anymore either; the manual that is.
That’s it. H & K tend to just blend together inside my brain.
If the Stinger ever came with a manual, I’d probably own one.
Preach.
It’s Nissan build quality. That’s far far worse.