Ever since Infiniti discontinued the aging G37 coupe and convertible, we’ve been waiting for it to introduce a replacement. And now that moment has arrived as production of the new Q60 has officially gotten underway.
Infiniti first revealed the Q60 in concept form at the beginning of last year at the 2015 Detroit Auto Show. It unveiled the production version a year later at the same show, but it’s taken until now for the plant in Tochigi, Japan, to gear up for production.
That’s partly because the factory needed to install new equipment to built the Q60. New deep-body stamping equipment was installed to make those sharp creases in the bodywork, and new tooling developed to manufacture the unique trunk lid made of a resin skin on a steel frame. Infiniti installed a dedicated paint booth just for the Dynamic Sandstone Red paint process as well, and new lighting and camera systems to supervise it all and ensure quality.
The new Q60 goes up against the likes of the Audi A5, BMW 4 Series, and Mercedes C-Class Coupe, as well as the Cadillac ATS Coupe and Lexus RC. Motivating the Infiniti is a new 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 available in two states of tune with either 300 or 400 horsepower.
It’s being manufactured at Nissan’s Tochigi plant where the model line has been produced for over 14 years now, stretching back to the G35 that started rolling down the line in 2002. Among other models manufactured at Tochigi are the Nissan 370Z and GT-R. To build the Q60, the automaker selected 216 of its skilled Takumi craftsmen out of 4,500 workers at the plant.
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