iloveGS300

Pretty nice car for the money. I wouldnt mind having one but its not the looks that bothers me its the quality.

Some of you guys make it sound like the car looks awful. Do you prefer the bland LS430 styling with its prevous generation S class / Avalon looks? Unsurpassed build quality/ reliability Aside. Both are extremely dull looking boats.

XeroK00L

Both are dull, yes. But the LS430 is the previous-gen S-Class kind of dull, while the Q45 is the enlarged econobox kind of dull. I'll take dull with a class over dull with an identity crisis any day.

iloveGS300

LOL. you think the LS430 has identity?

XeroK00L

When I said identity crisis I meant, from the looks at least, the LS430 is able to identify itself as a luxury car (copycat styling somewhat yes, but at least it's copying some classic lines), while the Q45 as a luxury car can't appear to identify and recognize itself at nearly the same level.

Xenthar

I love the interior and the rear, but it kinda does look oddly shaped. The headlights look really big cuz of the shape. Oh well....It will probably be 10 times better looking when it is fully redesigned.

iloveGS300

Oh ok I see your point.

RA40

iTrader: (6)

Doesn't really hit any excitement with me. For some reason, the thought Chevy Malibu keeps going through my head. What is with the headlights? Reminds me of a weapons array from one of the sci-fi anime shows....it's too much. Interior...I'll be nice and just say

As far as Infinity is concerened with me, their body designs lose appeal with each generation. The overall package with the LS flows nicer. Toyota designers suit my preferences in more areas.

Gojirra99

You are referring only to the Infiniti Q45 right ?

IMO, the Infiniti G35 & the new M35/45 have more appealing body designs than the new models Lexus will be offering that we've seen.

Trexus

I rember awhile back 1SICKLEX posted an article about the Q45 and how it really never took off. Infinity should drop the Q altogether and start from scratch and build the ultimate flagship. The G35 is relatively new and it's a hit, so is the FX 35/45. The next generation M45 also looks good. In the past Infinity had dropped the M30, J30 and the QX4. Might as well drop the Q45 and start with a new letter and a fresh start. I've also noticed the inconsistency of the designation of the Infinity cars. Ever noticed the I35 has a cursive I instead of a regular I. Whereas the other Infinity models have the regular letters and none have cursive letters. Infinity cars are alright but doesn't compare to Lexus.

LexFather

Article on the failure of the Q45

A Car Whose Time Will Never Come.

Detroit. There is one car lost in the euphoria of the miracle resurrection of Nissan, which has been engineered by the latest auto industry star-of-the-moment, Carlos Ghosn. It is also the one car that has not been able to be improved upon or enhanced by yet another rendition of Nissan's rear-wheel-drive "FM" platform. And it is the one car that apparently no amount of money can cajole or pull up by its lapels to the level aspired to by the Nissan brain trust.

And that car is the Infiniti Q45.

The "Q" has been a star-crossed nameplate ever since its disastrous introduction - when it went up against Lexus armed with its infamous "rocks and trees" ad campaign, which defiantly never showed the car. This was back when the two Japanese luxury entries were trying to gain a foothold in the U.S. market. Infiniti's strategy was to position the "Q" as the driver's car of the two dueling nameplates, but that was lost in the fact that no one could see the forest, I mean the car, through the rocks and trees. And we all know how that turned out.

Lexus, the luxury extension of the Toyota product/marketing juggernaut, became one of the most formidable brands in this market, while Infiniti continued to flounder through a series of fits and starts amounting to nothing more than a sequence of marketing mistakes piled on top of bad product decisions (the ungainly previous-generation "Q" looked like a ten-year-old car the moment it was introduced and was so blatantly out of place on the road that it veered dangerously close to achieving "clown car" status), which left the nameplate as a literal afterthought.

Yes, Infiniti has recovered of late through the brilliant massaging of a single basic Nissan platform that has yielded the G35 coupe and sedan - and the distinctive FX35/45 sport utility, but the "Q" continues to be an misfit that steadfastly refuses to capture the luxury car buying public's fancy - no matter what they do to it.

Nissan sold a grand total of 3,717 Q45s last year - and a scintillating tally of just 560 in the first three months of this year. Just for the sake of comparison, Lexus sold 7,877 LS430s in the first three months of this year.

Just as Nissan is touting yet another "freshened" iteration of the "Q", which will be coming in June, I have to ask the toughest question - why? As in why now, or even better - why bother?

If Nissan is serious about having a luxury presence in the U.S. market, then they have to accept the fact that the "Q45" is a tainted nameplate. And no matter how good the specs of the "Q" sound on paper, the car-buying public is conditioned to believe that it's either not worthy of consideration, or worse - it doesn't even show up on their radar screens at all.

I rarely recommend walking away from a nameplate, because it takes so much time to establish a nameplate to begin with, and the costs to seed a new nameplate in this market are staggering (not to mention the level of patience required to see it through).

But in this case, it's clear to me that the Q45 nameplate is beyond resuscitation, and if Nissan ever hopes to gain a real presence in the luxury market in North America, they would be better off just starting over - without the letter "Q."

Thanks for listening, see you next Wednesday.
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