INFINITI BRAND - GONE

[Larz]

Forbes Magazine -
Infiniti is going through a strategic change. The brand has been in the doldrums for some time. A critical part of the turnaround is a new positioning for the brand. Apparently, Infiniti will soon ditch its luxury heritage. According to the latest reporting in Automotive News, the new Infiniti strategy is “Nissan-Plus.” Infiniti’s new position is an upmarket Nissan, not a Mercedes, Audi, or Lexus competitor. It will now compete with Toyota and Honda. This approach has efficiencies but also has inherent brand and organizational effects, not all of them good.
Infiniti’s trademark rear-wheel drive coupe and sedans – epitomized by the Q50, Q60 and defunct Q70 – eventually will die off. In their place will come a Nissan platform, possibly pulled from the Altima or Maxima sedans, that accommodates the company’s e-Power hybrid setup.” Or, as Nissan’s COO, Ashwani Gupta told Automotive News, “We will bring back Infiniti as Nissan-Plus.” Dealers appear to be pleased with the new turnaround strategy. After all, there were concerns that Nissan might jettison the brand entirely.
The history of the automotive industry is littered with Nissan-Plus examples, where platforms and designs are shared. Ford, in particular, used this approach not only with its now defunct Mercury brand, but also with Jaguar. Mercury vehicles were identical to Ford-branded vehicles except for the grille and the price – Mercury was higher priced. As for Jaguar, for many years, Ford owned Jaguar. Rather than keep the exquisite styling of Jaguar, to save money and increase efficiency, Ford started making Jaguars on the Ford Taurus platform.
Whether this Nissan-Plus strategy works remains to be seen. If the goal is to make Infiniti a higher-end Nissan, then the possibility of Infiniti becoming Nissan Infiniti may become a reality with Infiniti being sold at Nissan dealerships. What would happen to those stand-alone Infiniti dealers?

Is this why my dealer (Lauderdale Infiniti) sold it's franchise and closed it's doors? The dealer I use now is consolidating space - using less for Infiniti and increasing space for Ford and Nissan. I was hoping that Infiniti would drop their 100% EV lineup and keep at least one RWD petrol sedan. I'm not sure what to think now.

[Rogue One]

[Bubba1]

My first thought is that only Nissan's marketing ... gurus(?) can rename a long, painful, self inflicted, negative trend....."Plus". I'm now waiting for the Buzz Lightyear memes to fill my FB feed.

[Larz]

My first thought is that only Nissan's marketing ... gurus(?) can rename a long, painful, self inflicted, negative trend....."Plus". I'm now waiting for the Buzz Lightyear memes to fill my FB feed.

LOL ! Allow me to start. Instead of 'beyond", it will be: "To Inifniti ! ... and back down again !"

[Ilya]

What a joke.

As I've said before, my wife's QX60 will be our last Infiniti SUV (thing rattles in the back like a mofo, gotta take it to the dealer) and I may get one of the last built 2019 Q70's for my next car in 3-4 years when my '11 M56x is at the end of its life...but that's it....if I don't switch to Lexus (for both vehicles - LS for me, RX for wife) before then...

I've had 5 total Nissan products and they were great. Shame. Damn shame.

[Larz]

What a joke.

As I've said before, my wife's QX60 will be our last Infiniti SUV (thing rattles in the back like a mofo, gotta take it to the dealer) and I may get one of the last built 2019 Q70's for my next car in 3-4 years when my '11 M56x is at the end of its life...but that's it....if I don't switch to Lexus (for both vehicles - LS for me, RX for wife) before then...

I've had 5 total Nissan products and they were great. Shame. Damn shame.

I think that's best. Below is a blurb from Renault/Nissan (what it calls itself) and it proves that there will be absolutely nothing worth getting excited about in the near future from this company. How can they possibly make any progress or invent anything new. Mind you, this plan was BEFORE the pandemic! I reckon chances are even slimmer now. I love my M. Its my 2nd M and made me a livelong loyal customer. Then, due to multiple changes in leadership, the simple 'That'll do" quality changes, and the way they walked away from the large sedan and refused to improve, update, or change even the radio, cost them my loyalty.
Infiniti 100% could have become the next Lexus story. They came out of nowhere, introduced a high quality luxury sedan with an ample powertrain, cutting edge tech (for 2006) and .............. well that was where it ended. After that, unlike Lexus, they did not continue to advertise, they made no effort to jump in with both feet and promote the bejesus out of the cars, and eventually set the whole program on auto pilot and walked away. That breaks my heart, so to speak. To see that much potential be simply ignored and left to die. What a huge waste.
I'm hoping that the upcoming financial woes will cause a breakup of this unholy trinity of companies, leaving behind a solo Nissan corp and that new management realizes there IS a place for Infiniti and turns the spigots back on.

"Renault Nissan and its Mitsubishi Motors partner unveiled a 3-year strategy to focus on profit not sales, cut costs by $5.6 billion annually, slash nearly 30,000 jobs and reorder its responsibilities to allow the companies to take charge of producing vehicles for regions to avoid duplication. Production capacity will cut about 20% to just under 8.8 million a year."

[MinisterofDOOM]

Infiniti died in 2006. This is not up for debate.

[AZhitman]

^ This. The 2005 M45 was the last Infiniti I'd even consider owning.

Meanwhile, every time I plop my aging carcass into the ridiculously-sumptuous seats of our long-wheelbase LS460, I'm reminded what Infiniti *could* have been.

Since no one from NNA is reading this, I won't bother to dredge up my countless past posts predicting this. "I told you so" seems so, so juvenile.

I told you so.

[MikeRL411]

I decided to buy a J30 many years ago . For various reasons I delayed until the "last" year model 1997 version. BUT ! Thanks to the penny pinching marketing department I could not find an Infiniti dealer advertising in my local area. By accident I found a dealer when driving by. They had a corporate Nissan unit on the floor. It had very low miles and was loaded with accessories. Did I mention that the dealer did not advertise in the local papers? So by luck I bought the last model year J30T with great mileage on the odometer. I got it for my price since it was sitting on the sales floor with no advertising that it or any other Infiniti vehicles were there and for sale.

Classic example of how to loose business [make that go out of business]. If you build it they will NOT come without sales and advertising support !

By the way, the last run of 1997 J30s were actually built and VIN numbered as 1998 units. Ghosn decided to use the I30 instead of the J30 as the sedan for the brand. Great? An rebadged Maxima front wheel drive instead of a great rear wheel drive flagship. You cant put a CVT in a rear wheel drive as easily as a front wheel drive ?

[Buzzman]

Infiniti died in 2006. This is not up for debate.

In my mind, Nissan died at the same time.
Last good Pathfinder: 2004
Last good Altima: 2006
Last good Sentra: 2006
Last good Maxima: 2003
First (crappy) Versa: 2007
Murano (with first CVT): 2003.
On and on it went.
The only newer thing I'd buy, and I'm actually looking for one, is the last year (2015) Xterra Pro 4X.
If I can find a low mileage unit, I'm going to take a shot at it.
When they do come up for sale around here, they're gone in a day.

[PalmerWMD]

There have been countless "initiatives" at Infiniti Over the years.
Many of them admittedly ill advised..

And many of them were not actually executed.

The best selling Infiniti vehicles right now, are those rear wheel drive based Sedans the Q50 (with AWD option), RWD/AWD Coupe Q60 and big body on frame SUVs the QX 80.
I dont see them getting rid of these profit centers willy nilly.

Plus across the lineup there is already a lot of economy of scale due to Nissan global engines being used and sometimes platforms.

Lexus + Audi are no different in that a significant portion of their product is based on their corporate global platforms and only a portion of their product line is brand unique.
This is whats happening now already everywhere else too like Acura.

I see no reason to panic, Infiniti will continue to make interesting and well performing vehicles for a long time to come..

As for going "all electric" other brands keep talking about an "electric future".. frankly I see it coming first to Audi before Infiniti.. and when Audi fails at it, which it will, Its hard to imagine Infiniti attempting to copy failure.

[Buzzman]

Lexus + Audi are no different in that a significant portion of their product is based on their corporate global platforms and only a portion of their product line is brand unique.
This is whats happening now already everywhere else too like Acura.

Acura went into the same rabbit hole 10+ years ago when Honda decided to rest on it's laurels, save cash, and sell re-branded Civics and Accords as upscale Acura luxury vehicles, for tons more money. Acura car sales have tanked ever since.
You'd think the auto industry would learn from past mistakes, but such is not the case.
They keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Just look at what Cadillac did back in the 80's with the Cimarron when they gussied up a Chevy Cavalier and tried to pass it off as a luxury brand. Cadillac is still trying to recover.
Then Chrysler put some lipstick on a K-car and re-badged it as a Chrysler New Yorker. That went well too.
It just goes on and on.

[AZhitman]

Sort of.

Acura sales are actually up since 2010, and have been pretty consistent since 2012.

Cadillac's issues are far removed from their 80's clownery. They've been to the mountain and back down several times since.

[Buzzman]

Sort of.

Acura sales are actually up since 2010, and have been pretty consistent since 2012.

Cadillac's issues are far removed from their 80's clownery. They've been to the mountain and back down several times since.

OK, so here in Canada, RDX and MDX sales have increased year over year (mostly the RDX).
However, I was talking more about their sedan sales.
The ILX, RLX and TLX have tanked. They gave up on advancing the tech, much like Infiniti, and just put lipstick on the Civic and Accord.
The ILX doesn't even use the current generation Civic platform. They slapped an Acura badge on the previous generation Civic, and charge $10k more for it. The new Civic is a better car, and cheaper. Shameful.
As for Cadillac, I was just using their failed attempt with the Cimarron in the 80's as an example of car manufacturers using common base platforms to try and build a luxury car without actually succeeding, and of course charging a premium for said failure.
It's been going on for a long time.
Leather seats and chrome does not a luxury car make.

[Bubba1]

I see an additional similarity between Acura and (soon to be "and beyond") Infiniti. Both made the same misguided decision to rename their sedan model lineup to letters after spending years cultivating a good reputation for sedan models with names. Remember the Acura Legend or Vigor? Evidently Infiniti is proving that those that ignore history are destined to repeat it. Though to be fair, one could argue Acura better pulled themselves out that naming disaster than Infiniti.

About the Acura small sedan, the older TSX is an example of a gussied up, reused Civic platform that was quite good. I suspect with ILX, they tried the same formula but got lazy in the execution. ILX reliability just was not as good as the older TSX or the Civic. I agree with Buzzman that it's difficult to justify a price premium when a lower Civic was both better and cheaper.


The Cimarron is a very good example of Cadillac's many WTF rebadging decisions over the years. The rebadged Opel (Catera), the watt-TF overpriced version of the Volt ( ELR), are others. I've always believed that after so many decades of selling mediocre luxury vehicles, at this point, the only way Cadillac can improve their situation is by making their warranty program the best in the industry instead of being just mediocre. Lexus can get away with a lesser warranty as the perception is their cars will last longer. Cadillac squandered that perception years ago and continues to struggle. Although I see Caddy investing more to stay relevant than Infiniti (not really saying much there), I think are both are guilty of taking their existing customer bases for granted and neither has done enough to attract new buyers outside their base.

[Buzzman]

Some excellent points Bubba1.
The whole renaming thing really threw a loop into things. I still don't understand the Infiniti product lineup.
I knew what a G35 was, and an FX-35, but when they changed everything, I gave up.
Infiniti is not alone with confusing model designations.
I still don't understand BMW or Mercedes models and designations.
There's like a half dozen different BMW3 series sedans and labels, none of which I understand. It's nuts.
Audi at least is a little easier to figure out.
I miss the good old days when cars had names, like Jensen Interceptor, or Ford Thunderbird, or Chryslers' Super Bee or Super bird, or Triumph Spitfire, etc.etc.etc. Great names. Plus you always knew the difference between a Chevy Biscayne and an Impala. Stuff like that.
Who the hell these days knows what a Q60 is or an M240i or whatever? I sure don't.
BTW, My brother in law had a 2006 Acura TL. That was a nice car. I really liked it. He kept it for 10 years and then traded it in...on a CR-V. Fool.

[AZhitman]

According to the sources in the industry that I've chatted with, the alphanumeric naming system really took a hit when displacements dropped.

BMW and Mercedes (I believe) were the first to screw this up, maintaining a series + displacement naming system that was abandoned when engines changed. A 540i may not have a 4-litre engine... frustrating at best, and blatantly misleading at worst.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Yep.

BMW tried it in the 80s using "FIA displacement equivalency" system for boosted cars, trying to pass off a turbo six 7 series as a 745i. Nobody bought it, and it went away with the next generation. But it's back in full force now, with utter bullcrap like the CLA45 AMG, which is a Turbo 2.0, nothing even closely resembling 4.5. Sure, that turbo four is very very powerful (in fact, the latest variant is supposedly the highest specific-output production engine in history). But it's not a 4.5. It's a 2.0. And you can go on all day about boost, but I can put a turbo on a 4.5 V8 or V12 just as easily as you can put one on a transverse four. And what do I call that? 590i?

Lexus is worse, if anything. Passing hybridization off as though it's the same as forced induction. LX450h my a**.

Honestly, it's not much different from 80s and 90s Ford cramming gutless, tiny V6s everything just so they could put a V6 badge on it, when everybody else's fours were still better anyway. It's all just marketing upbadging to make your car sound better, and it's shady.

If we're numbering things by engine size but not really engine size, just sort of adjusted engine size, it's not just dumb and meaningless, it's now also shadier than a backalley crack deal out of a V6 Tempo.

Of course, Nissan isn't innocent here. 200sx had displacements both higher AND lower than 2 liters. Q45 was 4.1 liters for a few years.

But I do think that of all brands, Nissan screwed up the alphanumeric naming the most. With Audi and BMW, it was pretty clear which car was which. The 3 was the smallest (just like Mazda). The 7 was the biggest. Until very recently, you could also safely assume odd numbers were sedans and evens were coupes, etc.

But Nissan started in the middle and worked out both ways, introducing new models in between in really weird ways, and not establishing a clear floor or ceiling for reference. As a result, I honestly don't remember if a QX60 is an EX or an FX or a Pathfinder or what. Especially weird when they kept the old former-G35 Q50 (Q60? Q40? ugh...I don't even remember) but THEN DROPPED ITS MODEL NUMBER ONE SLOT LOWER. So the SAME EXACT CAR was a Q50 one year and a Q40 the next year (I think it was 50 and 40, anyway). But why the @#$%^ start at 50? Why not 10? Or 20? Or 30 like the Germans? And why skip some numbers, fill them in later, etc? It might make sense on your big ol' corporate product planning 10-year whiteboard sketch, but means less than jack to average carbuyers. Even to enthusiasts. Nobody had trouble remembering that the Q was the luxboat, the M was the muscle, the G was the little one. But 40, 50, 60, 70, 80. Oh, look, I like those Q...wait. Is that a 50 or a 60? I don't even remember. Plus they all look identical. Is that the one with the V8 or the V6? Who even knows. Does Infiniti? Probably not without refering to a spreadsheet.

[AZhitman]

My LS460L is a 4.6 liter. I wouldn't trade it for an M56 with a stack of Benjis in the glove box. It's that good.

Those last two paras are utter poetry. I think this needs to become an article as well.

[MikeRL411]

Even more basic to Infiniti model numbering was the fact that he number was the selling price in thousands. The J30 was $30,000, the M20 was $ 20,00 and the Q45 was $ 45,000. Stupid but easy to remember.