LuxuryCarMagazine En Luxury Car Review and News
You have to hand it to Infiniti; year after year, and auto show after auto show, they manage to continue to churn out some of the grandest, most handsome and out there—but still realistic, somehow—concept the floor has to offer.
(Los Angeles, CA) Take the Q80 Inspiration seenat this year’s LA show, for example; just look at those fantastic rims, the suicide doors and beautifully flowing lines that looks as though they are created from liquid metal that could somehow shape-shift into anything else, be it a motorcycle, spaceship or humanoid form, like T-200 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
Then you look inside (east to do, since there are no B-pillars), and there’s even more eye candy. The four bucket seats, for example, the rears finished in white with diamond pattern stitching, the fronts in a jet black wing-backed form. Or the flat-bottomed, multifunction steering wheel. Or the way the front seatbacks are so thin, it seems like you could slice cheese with them.
It all distracts from the fact that the Q80 is Infiniti’s move towards autonomous driving, that can be performed by the driver through steering wheel buttons and a heads-up display reflected off the windshield.
It’s there that you see the real point of the Q80; and that’s to showcase Infiniti’s taking the full-size luxury segment more seriously going forward, as well as an increased focus on hybrid tech and autonomous driving. You will see some of this tech in upcoming Infiniti models.
Better yet, is that this is actually a running prototype, one with a hybrid powertrain boasting a twin-turbo V6 that can pump out 550—FIVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY—horsepower. That’s more than the Audi Prologue Concept that was supposed to be the star of the show.
And did I mention it looks great? What’s not to like?
