As you might imagine, no one’s particularly happy about Infiniti’s new nomenclature. The fanbase has gone from being confused to downright outraged, with plenty of angry posts seen on their Facebook page. But Infiniti has reacted with a statement from President Johan de Nysschen, in which he promises a 550+ horsepower flagship sedan. How’s that for compensation?
The statement starts by explaining that the new system is much more flexible for Infiniti. Under the old system, any other fitting alphanumeric combinations were already trademarked by other manufacturers. Nysschen says that Infiniti is “embarking on a massive product offensive,” so they are going to need the flexibility of this new naming system. He also claims that the current system has been confusing consumers in markets where Infiniti is a relatively-new brand.
However, the most interesting part was the promise of “smaller, lighter, more fuel efficient yet more powerful” engines. Nysschen explains that the current nomenclature would force them to name “a new high-tech 550+ horsepower performance flagship” as the M30, when the car should be positioned above the current M56. This part of the statement reveals to us that we can expect a 550+ horsepower, 3.0L “potent charged induction V6” to be stuck under the hood of the Infiniti Q70 (previously the Infiniti M) sometime in the future, which makes for a very promising performance sedan. And when you’ve got a car like that on your hands, the name becomes rather irrelevant, doesn’t it?
Source: Infiniti on Facebook
They should have used this naming approach from day 1. The X represents cross over like Lexus, Lincoln, and Acura.
Q is from Q-ships and the historical significance of that name.
Q-ships, also known as Q-boats, decoy vessels, special service ships, or mystery ships, were heavily armed merchant ships with concealed weaponry, designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks. This gave Q-ships the chance to open fire and sink them.
The basic ethos of every Q-ship was to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Infiniti needs to finish the public education job that was never started on the first attempt at using Q in the model name.
I’m not sure why everyone’s in a tizzy about the new nomenclature. We all understand what the difference is between an Audi A3, A4, A5, A6, A7 and A8, don’t we? We understand what BMW’s 3-series, 5-series, 6-series, and 7-series are, don’t we (albeit I like the engine sizes added to the name, e.g. 550)? For newcomers to the Infiniti brand, we won’t have any problems understanding what a Q50, Q60 and Q70 are. And as Infiniti adds other models, such as a Q40 or whatever, we’ll learn what that is too without an issue. I don’t care if engine size is in the model name or not (again, I have no problem understanding that an Audi A4 can have a 2.0L or 3.2L engine), but I DO wish Infiniti’d use the “x” postfix to denote all-wheel drive (but not a big deal). All-in-all, who cares what the naming is — it’s the car and it’s features I care about.