Infiniti has given the strongest suggestion yet that the radical Q60 Project Black S will spawn a rival to the Mercedes-AMG C63 and BMW M4.
Speaking to Motor Magazine, Infiniti Cars Australia product planning manager Bernard Michel said the car should see the light of day.
“Let’s just say under the new regime of management I doubt that [it will be killed],” he said.
Of course, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard of a BMW M rival from Infiniti. In 2014, it unveiled the Q50 Eau Rouge concept and initially said that it would hit the production line and spawn a range of ‘Eau Rouge’ badged high-performance models. But, after mulling over the business case of the GT-R-powered super sedan, it cancelled the project.
However, at the time of the Q50 Eau Rouge’s cancellation, the luxury division of Nissan was being run by Johan de Nysschen. Now, former senior vice president of BMW Roland Krueger serves as Infiniti’s CEO and according to Michel, this will make all the difference.
“It was under two different sets of management. Roland Krueger who is the CEO now, he comes from BMW, so performance-based cars, and he has an objective, he wants to see these sorts of projects come to life. His endeavour is to continue to build this brand.
“He [Krueger] is pushing this agenda and he wants to have a fast flagship for the company,” he said.
Power for the Q60 Project Black S concept came from a 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 paired with a kinetic energy recovery system from the Renault Sport F1 team to deliver 500 hp. Michel said there is serious interest in bringing this powertrain to the road.
“I think there’s a relationship there with F1, we’re the technical partner to them specialising in hybrids, so you basically have all the guys from Japan and they want a one-for-one translation. If you’ve got the potential from a performance perspective to do it, why not?” he asked.
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