TO INFINITI AND BEYOND

“People should look at this car. There are many strong hints of what’s coming.”

What is Infiniti? Nissan’s luxury brand is young—it was 30 years ago that it broke onto the international stage with the Q45 sedan unveiled at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. But the spirit of performance it aims to deliver dates back to the boutique Prince Motor Company of the ’50s, which built sports cars that chased Porsche 904s around the Japanese Grand Prix (and often won). Nissan bought Prince in 1966, and those cars were the precursors to the Q50 on the road today.

In terms of design, Infiniti was at its best when it created the “bionic cheetah,” the first FX concept at the 2001 Detroit show. A second, closer-to-production FX45 concept was shown at the 2002 show, and by January 2003 the FX was on sale. The brand’s recent Inspiration series of concepts—not to mention the Prototype 9 and 10—have also sparked the imagination. In looking at design