Whenever somebody asked me what I did for a living during the summer of 1994, I would tell them “I sell Infinitis”. That was a lie. My actual job was to lease the Infiniti J30 at $399/month to second-tier suburban wanna-bes and a wide variety of credit criminals. That was what paid for our owner’s impressive coke habit, and that was what earned me as much as three thousand dollars per month.

In the interest of strict factual accuracy, I should point out that we did, nominally, sell two other models. The 1994 Q45 was an overpriced brick with a Park Avenue-style facelift. Over the course of six months, we sold two of them, one to a former salesman who was simply in the habit of driving that particular car as a demo, and one to somebody who owned a 1990 example and was only vaguely horrified at the “updates” performed that year. Looking back, I think he used to snort coke with the dealership’s owner. It would explain a lot.

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A hybrid version of the Nissan Fuga (better known as the Infiniti M35/45 on these shores) could deliver an up to 90 percent better fuel-efficiency than its  conventionally powered model, Nissan’s chief engineer for hybrid systems told The Nikkei [sub] today.

“We expect fuel economy to improve by 60 percent to 90 percent” over the conventional model, chief engineer Koichi Hayasaki said at a media briefing. (Read More…)

Like several other full-line manufacturers, Nissan’s car sales lagged in June (up 2.7 percent), as the brand’s nearly 11 percent growth was driven primarily by increases in truck sales. On the other hand, few of its vehicles actually lost sales. The Cube dropped 11 percent to 1,896 units, and the Altima fell 2.6 percent, as did Nissan’s sportscars, the 370Z (-3.5%, 892 units) and GTR (-44%, 84 units). Every truck and Infiniti vehicle was up, though, leaving Nissan with a solid, if generally weak sales month. Full numbers after the jump.

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“We need young, college-educated people like you,” the man said, “because the old way of selling cars is dead and gone. That’s why I was hired — to bring the dealership into the present day.” And with those thoroughly self-deceived words, the new sales manager at “Infiniti Of Columbus” welcomed to me to the team in March of 1994. It was the end of winter in Ohio, but it was just the middle of Infiniti’s long winter of discontent. We had three products. There was a facelifted Q45 which precisely nobody wanted. There was a facelifted G20 which cost nearly as much as a Lexus ES300 while closely resembling a Nissan Sentra inside and out. Note, however, that the G20 shared nothing but the engine with the aforementioned Sentra. On any given month, we would sell two G20s and no Q45s. In fact, during my entire six months’ tenure at the store, we only sold two Q45s, one of them to a salesman who was quitting to go work for Merrill Lynch.

It was the new-for-1993 J30 that kept the lights on and paid our meager draws against commission. The jellybean-shaped, rear-wheel-drive sedan was available as a J30 or J30t. Neither car had any options available: in an amazing reductio ad absurdum of the Japanese export philosophy, the equipment list was the same for every single car that came off the boat. The “t” model added HICAS four-wheel-steering, a rear spoiler that truly spoiled the otherwise interesting design, and some cross-spoke wheels. They were hideously expensive — $37,995 and up in an era where an LS400 could be had for fifty grand or less — and they were both controversial-looking and suspiciously similar to a Nissan Altima at a distance. (Jerry Hirschberg designed ’em both.)

It didn’t matter. We rarely sold any outright, but more than 20 would leave the lot every month thanks to the Magic Lease.
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With the 2006-2010 Infiniti M, a highly competent luxury performance sedan was hidden beneath utterly forgettable sheetmetal. Before my father bought his 2008 Cadillac CTS I suggested that he also check out the M. One glance at the car’s exterior was all he needed to summarily reject it. Well, for 2011 Infiniti has totally redesigned the M to address this shortcoming. The question now: does the rest of the car measure up to the new come-hither exterior?

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Automotive News [sub] dug through Infiniti’s patent filings, and came up with an unexpected find: a filing that reserves the terms “Infiniti Performance Line” and “IPL” to market

the brand’s use of “high-performance motor vehicle parts,” including turbochargers and superchargers for engines, cat-back exhaust and muffler systems, shifter knobs, suspension parts, brakes, sports seats and off-road headlights.

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Many cars look and drive much like any number of other cars. They’re simply not special in any way. You might as well toss a coin to choose among them. The EX35 is not one of these cars. Infiniti’s compact crossover is unlike anything else in the U.S. market. And you’re either going to love it or, more likely, hate it.

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Automotive News Digital Edition [sub] reports that Mercedes-Benz is holding consumer clinics in the US, gathering input ahead of its launch of the first front-drive Mercedes models to be sold in the US. Sales of the B-Class-based front-drive models won’t being until “after 2011,” and Mercedes admits that a design freeze has not yet taken place. Still, one thing is certain: prospective customers are not being shown an MPV-like hatchback along the lines of the current B-Class that’s sold in Europe and Canada because of dealer concerns. Says MB-USA development boss Bernhard Glaser:

[Dealers] were concerned about the previous generation because it did stand out and that is kind of a whole different brand sell that you have to try and jump over. This will be seamless.

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One of the biggest conundrums facing the folks tasked with marketing the forthcoming first generation of mainstream electric cars is branding. On the one hand, firms want their mainstream brands associated with the green halo of having an electric car in its portfolio. On the other hand, electric cars aren’t cheap. From a pure pricing perspective, it makes more sense to brand expensive EVs as luxury products. GM struggled with this problem when it developed its Converj version of the Volt, ultimately deciding that the common-sense arguments for branding the $40k Volt as a Cadillac weren’t as important as boosting Chevy’s profile with an EV offering. Nissan, meanwhile, has decided that it has room for both a Nissan-branded Leaf EV and an Infiniti-branded luxury version.
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Some cars just have to be seen in person to be properly fathomed. I think that’s what’s going on with the new Infiniti M. In any case, it’s hard to imagine that this model will be able to fly under the consumer radar with the stealth of its predecessor. Luckily Nissan will have the off-putting eco-pedal option to blame for a tepid consumer response. You know, in case the hints of Maserati about the design don’t translate into real life.

Nissan’s alleged premium brand Infiniti is going to the dark side…well, the less refined side. The Auto Channel reports that Infiniti are going to put a newly developed diesel power train (produced in grand alliance with Renault) into their vehicles for the European market. They are aiming to put this oil burner into the EX and FX CUV’s, and later into the M saloon. (Which is not a new watering hole. It’s  what the Americans would call a sedan. Which is a town in France. Or in Australia. Or in Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota and West Virginia. You figure it out. ED)

Infiniti has been in Europe for less than a year. Jim Wright, Vice President of Infiniti Europe, compensates lack of experience with lack of shame, and with a PR-writer prone to flowery prose (always a dead give-away for wannabe-luxury:) “The sales success enjoyed by Infiniti in Europe against a backdrop of financial uncertainty proves the cars’ appeal to a discerning audience. We have established Infiniti as the luxury performance brand thanks in part to the remarkable multi-award winning VQ petrol engine that powers most of the models in the range.” (And he didn’t refer to a kitchen stove. ED) (Read More…)