Luxury to the Infiniti
If you are a fan of Japanese automotive reliability, you must like Nissan a lot. And if you do, Infiniti must be one of the makes you look out for.
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Infiniti is the luxury car division of Nissan. Established in 1989 to compete in the US premium auto market alongside fellow Japanese brands (Acura and Lexus) as well as European-based BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz, Infiniti has managed to create a global network in a fairly short time.
The Infiniti story began in 1985 with the formation of a “Horizon Task Force” within Nissan, with the singular aim of creating a new performance luxury brand.
Literally from scratch, the Horizon Task
Force began working on an expansive vision, eschewing the simple re-badging of current vehicles to embrace a new luxury automobile ethic encompassing not only product, but the entire purchase and ownership process.
With existing U.S. and European luxury brands already well entrenched in the American marketplace, this endeavour was not only ambitious, but also positively risky.
Eventually, the look and feel of luxury hotels, among others, informed the design of the first Infiniti showrooms and could be felt in fine detail such as the business card design and packaging.
This new customer-centric philosophy – later named the Infiniti Total Ownership Experience – would be applied to service policies as well, and included the then unheard-of amenity of offering free service loaner cars.
Sales took off in November 1989 when the initial 51 Infiniti dealers in the U.S. opened their showroom doors for the first time, launching in the US with two models: the Q45 performance luxury sedan, and the driver-oriented M30 performance luxury coupe.
With these two models and the Infiniti Total Ownership Experience, Infiniti soon gained recognition as an industry leader in customer satisfaction, winning numerous awards where it mattered. By the 10th year, Infiniti was consistently selling at least 75,000 units annually.
The new millennium heralded a period of unprecedented growth for Infiniti. Led by visionary executive Carlos Ghosn, the company concentrated on reinvigorating the brand with an altogether new breed of vehicles – cutting-edge rear-wheel drive and all-wheel drive designs.
In March 2002, the dramatic Infiniti G35 Sedan was soon followed by the G35 Coupe in November, and finally the iconic Infiniti FX in January 2003. Reviews were exceptional and the Infiniti name was soon to be heard amongst those of the leading European marques for design and performance leadership.
Customers responded positively, with unit sales surpassing the 100,000 milestone for the first time in 2003, and hitting 119,000 – an increase of 35 per cent over 2002 sales.
This achievement marked Infiniti as the fastest growing luxury brand in the U.S and by 2004, cumulative Infiniti sales had topped one million units.
Today, Infiniti has more than 230 dealers in 15 countries worldwide. As with the majority of Japanese car makers, Infiniti emphasises the importance of technological improvements.
Among the latest innovations, it has delivered the regenerative Anti Scratch Advanced Paint or ASAP as well as the Around View, an optics system that allows the driver to see a complete image of the car's surroundings.
As of 2013, Infiniti's model designation has changed, to a nomenclature in which the coupes and sedans start with the letter Q, while the SUVs and crossovers start with the letters QX, followed by a number reflecting the model's place in the brand line-up.
For instance, the M sedan has become the Q70; the G sedan has been replaced with the Q50; and the QX56 has become the QX80.
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