With Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel having clinched the second consecutive drivers’ championship crown after the results of the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday, it was only a matter time before Infiniti would confirm what we already suspected after the debut of the FX concept in Frankfurt: the crossover that bears his name will enter a limited run production.
The announcement was made by Nissan Executive Vice President Andy Palmer at an interview for the company’s corporate blog.
As a refresher, Sebastian Vettel, who is an ambassador for the Infiniti brand, helped design a special version of the FX50 luxury crossover with several modifications including a tweaked V8 delivering 420-horses, numerous aerodynamic enhancements inspired by F1 racecars and lowered chassis.
Further details on the production version of the FX Sebastian Vettel Edition are expected to be released before the end of the year.
In the interview, Palmer said that the “relationship” between Infiniti and Vettel will proceed through the company’s IPL division, which is being modeled after BMW‘s M series and Mercedes’ AMG arm.
“First of all, doing the Sebastian Vettel Version was fun. It was fun for Sebastian, it was fun for Shiro Nakamura and actually it’s a really interesting car. But it’s also a kind of pilot for IPL, Infiniti Performance Line. It’s about being able to do our equivalent of AMG or M-series and we wanted to test the organization and can the organization cope we’ve these type of special versions,” said Palmer.
“This is one of the first versions that will go to market. Not as an IPL—it’ll obviously go as the Sebastian Vettel special version, but it demonstrates we’re able to do these low volume, very special versions and be able to charge a premium for that kind of work. Again, hopefully, with Sebastian now the world champion, the demand for his special version is going to be that much higher,” he added.
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