The 2018 Detroit Auto Show is starting off with some dropped jaws, courtesy of the Infiniti Q Inspiration Concept, which combines Infiniti’s awesome new high-tech engine with the brand’s future interior and exterior design language.
Boom! The mic has been dropped and one of the most stunning cars of the show is fully unveiled. The Q Inspiration Concept combines the Japanese luxury brand’s impressive portfolio into one sexy four-door.
The four-door features an elongated, coupe-like profile that Infiniti says is foreshadowing it’s next sedan’s design. Not afraid to put the other luxury automakers on notice, Infiniti’s VP of global design, Christian Meunier says “the premium sedan segment has become rather conservative,” and that this wild new concept will attract a younger audience. The design language prioritizes “straight lines, concise graphics, and clean surfaces.” It’s safe to say that they’ve designed something that’s truly eye-catching. The LED headlights still use that unique human-eye-like design that illuminates individual segments to look like an eyeball. Up front there are a few interesting details that look like they’re cut right into the sheet metal, giving the car a very chiseled look. The rear doors are pillarless, and rear-hinged, reminding us that this is indeed a concept car.
But having rear-hinged, pillarless rear doors means that we can get a good look at the interior, which adopts a clean, minimalist mantra. Well detailed with wonderful materials, this isn’t going to leave you disappointed in any way. There’s a lot of space thanks to the car’s cleverly packaged powertrain, and the dashboard uses a heavily grained matte wood trim called kobazakura. The white leather upholstery uses Infiniti’s patented dot quilting design. There are also orange accents on the seats that call back to the car’s flashy alloy wheels. And Infiniti says each person in the car gets their own touchscreen which represents a wonderful kind of utopia in of itself. Tablets for everyone!
But of course, Infiniti has a cool powertrain to showcase here as well. Under the hood is the brand’s new VC-Turbo engine, which is a four-cylinder that has a variable compression ratio, meaning it can be as efficient as a four-cylinder diesel while being as powerful as a large V6. It can use a compression ratio anywhere between 8:1 for high performance to 14:1 for high efficiency. The engine is paired with a front-biased all-wheel-drive system, further previewing what Infiniti plans for a future model.
Alongside the cool design and the impressive engine is a promise of advanced, driver assistance technology and autonomous driving capability. It is a concept after all, so why not promise the world, right? This car does have some realistic interpretations of these technologies though, with autonomous multi-lane highway driving capabilities. On the other hand, there’s also a promise of autonomous intersection navigation, something that we’d imagine would be difficult to perfect. All these autonomous features are branded under the ProPILOT name tag.
An auto show just isn’t an auto show unless there are some cool concepts. The Infiniti Q Inspiration Concept has everything a cool concept needs: it looks awesome, has imaginative doors, packs some new interior materials, an impressive engine and can drive itself when needed. It’s concept car perfection.
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