I Find The Kind-Of M3-Rivalling 400bhp Infiniti Q50 Oddly Tempting
I’ve thought long and hard about this, and I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen a single Infiniti Q50 out in the ‘wild’ this year. The reason why? The Infiniti brand is nowhere in the UK. In 2014, the marque sold just 746 cars in this country, which seems jolly insignificant when you consider over the same period Audi shifted 158,987.
The Nissan GT-R-engined Q50 Eau Rouge concept could have put the forgotten 3-series rival on the map, if it hadn’t been cancelled a few months ago. However, there is now a Q50 that might just make petrolheads sit up and take notice.
It’s not being billed as some sort of monstrous BMW M3/Mercedes C63 beater, and in fact, it doesn’t even have any sort of special name or badging - it’s just a new range-topping Q50 introduced with the car’s mid-life update. But on paper, it looks rather promising: it’s powered by a 3.0-litre, twin-turbo ‘VR30’ V6, good for 400bhp and 350lb ft of torque, just 25bhp shy of the current M3’s output.
It gets better, as the Q50’s suspension has been overhauled, and the V6 models come with electronically-controlled adjustable dampers. Oh, and it gets a proper steering rack, and not the ill-advised, ‘remote’ Direct Adaptive Steering found in other Q50s.
There’s no word on price or performance figures yet (we’d expect a sub-5sec 0-62mph time), but I’ve always liked the idea of left-field BMW M3 alternatives. It’ll no doubt fall a little short of the thrills offered by the products of M Division, AMG and quattro GmbH, but it should be an interesting and usefully quick car.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
It’s smart, but perhaps too understated. It looks nothing more special than a standard Q50.
I’ll take the Giulia please ;)
Yeah because they cost remotely similar right?
I totally get what you’re saying, and if I was in the market for a new car I would be tempted…
Except it looks exactly like a dad car.
Which is nice if you want a sleeper, particularly if you do track days…
VR30…hasn’t there been a rumor that the next GT-R would be equipped with that engine (together with a hybrid system)? I’m excited as how it will be! Let’s be honest: this engine is a much more logical approach than the Eau Rouge in terms of being a testbed for the R36. But not giving it some kind of emotional name/name at all? Boo Nissan, stand in the corner facing the wall!
The issue with these cars is that they’ve taken the position that Mercedes had previously held of being “an old man car”. Mercedes made up for it by releasing bonkers machines out into the wild; Infiniti though, still has to prove itself to a lot of customers before it can be considered “fun”.
I’ll hold judgement till there is more information and reviews but I don’t think this will be able to compete with the M3 and ATS-V.
car is more likely to compete with audi s4,rather than with the rs4