QOTD: Could the Nissan Z Be a Secret Infiniti Q60 Replacement?
Tonight’s the night. The wraps finally officially come off the next Nissan Z.
Your humble author is sitting at a Starbucks in Brooklyn, counting the hours until tonight’s unveiling. And thinking about the future of not just the Z, but Infiniti.
That sounds weird, I know. What does Nissan’s luxury brand have to do with the Z?
Hear me out.
Last week, as we planned our coverage, my boss and I were batting around an idea. What if the Z acts as an unofficial replacement for the Infiniti Q60?
There’s an argument to be made for that — the new Z probably will be priced similarly to the Q, and Infiniti is struggling a bit these days, in part because it seems to have lost its performance-luxury appeal. Infiniti also seems, like most brands, to be heavily crossover-focused these days.
Not to mention the Q60 rides on the FM platform, which it shares with the old Z, and the new Z, for all its changes, is expected to remain on the FM platform as well.
I did ping Infiniti to see if they’d spill any beans, but PR will of course not say anything revealing about future product. The response I got talked up the current Q60 while carefully avoiding any mention of the car’s future.
Personally, I hope the Z and Q60 both continue to exist — we need more sports coupes in this world. And if the new Z is good, I hope Infiniti can use its bones, lux them up a bit, and make the Q60 into a true BMW 4-Series/Lexus RC fighter.
What say you, Best and Brightest?
[Image: Infiniti]
Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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Unlikely. In fact, I'll wager the Q60 is dead within two years. Sport coupes simply don't sell well enough. If Infiniti hadn't just gone through the expense of designing an all new QX60, I'd swear the entire brand was about to get dumped. The "Nissan Plus" strategy is going to kill the brand whether the name lives or not.
I lost all interest in the new Z when just learning that it's still uses the heavy ancient FM platform. We waited 15 years to do a Z refresh rather than a new car ? how lame.
Use the Z platform as basis for 4 door Sports Sedan for Infiniti. There is no business case to obtain ROI. If Nissan sells one version as Maxima and one version as Infiniti then maybe. Too risky. It's ICE season and regulators have few obstacles to eliminating gasoline vehicle sales.
I always thought of the Infiniti G35 Coupe, G37 Coupe and Q60 as being the replacement for the Nissan Z's 2+2 Coupes. I can't see the new Z-Car as being a replacement for the Infiniti coupes, unless they bring back the 2+2 version.