Yep, all that is slated for 2016. Big year for them.

Also Infiniti sales are already way up this year, higher than all other luxury brands (except Land Rover). Q50, QX60 and QX80 are selling very well. Q70 sales have also been very good since getting its facelift and long wheel base version.

 

Oh, you're right. It was the RL. Acura took a sharply styled sedan and coupe and made them into a poor LS400 knock-off. Even worse.

 

Good to hear sales are up. The Q70 is a nice car. It just didn't look very upscale from the outside but the facelift has helped. I see QX60's all over the place. But, as someone else mentioned, Infiniti's lease rates are pretty cheap right now. I can't wait to see their product launch in 2016.

 

if that were true, why would bmw rename the 3 series coupe (that's been a 3 for decades) as the 4 series? didn't hurt the brand at all.

 

When I was in grad school, there was a JP post-doc driving a Legend coupe. Everytime I passed by that car, I couldn't stop looking at it.

It is so rare to see a current RLX now. When it comes out sometime, its ugly proportions not only hurt my eyes, but hurt my heart.

It is difficult for me to accept the fact that some companies trash their legacy in that way.

 

... and it's amazing how many people I still talk to today who say the same thing. What adds to the debacle for a lot of people who knew infiniti before the convention change is that there already was a Q45 model, so that adds another element of confusion into the mix.

But that wasn't nearly as radical a change as G to Q50. (I actually just had to google Q50 to make sure I had it right.) BMW already had the reintroduction of the 6-series in the 2000s with the E63/64 based on the 5-series E60 chassis (not to mention the 8-series flagship coupe in the 90s), so there was recent precedent for a numerical convention with the higher, even-numbered designation indicating a coupe. Plus, moving from 3 to 4 isn't going to confuse anyone much.

On the other hand, G to Q50? When there used to be a Q45 flagship sedan just 8 years prior? It'd be like BMW calling the 4-series the i90 instead and people not going WTF.

There is no question that infiniti's underlying problem is unattractive cars and bad management. The nightmare naming convention sure doesn't help, though.

 

To me, one of the key differences in Infiniti's change is that they changed over every model at once, and all the names are similar. I'm not sure which vehicle is which--sure, I can figure out that a QX30 is smaller than a QX70, but I don't know all the increments (is there a QX40, QX50, QX60, QX80?)--you kinda need to go and look at all the model names they are currently using to know which old name converted to which new name.

 

It's not just the name or the design that put the hurt on the RL. I had a 2000 TL, and I remember looking at the specs of the RL when I was shopping for the TL. The TL had more HP, more torque, a larger trunk, a similar sized rear seat, was only a few inches shorter, and cost $1,000s less than the RL. If you spent all that extra money on the RL, you got fog lights and maybe a CD changer. It made no sense to me why anyone at that time would have bought an RL. You just can't position your "flagship" vehicle like that.

 

if you fell in love with the car, you wouldn't care if it was called a G37 or Q50.

the naming changes are moving chairs around on the titanic - not making any difference but maybe making the management feel good.

 

name changes have much to do with marketing than just to make management feel good. you do it wrong and you break the whole connection with consumers and you are done. that's exactly what infiniti has done here.

bmw changing from 3 to 3/4 is a huge distance from what infiniti did in terms of scale. yet, it has taken bmw years to plan and "warn" about this. they still got a lot of resistance, but at least over time they have built the stage well enough that people are "ok" with it now. and most important, 4 (and 2) wasn't really taken by a bmw model.

Q was the flagship infiniti, and now they are naming every Q and use the number to distinguish the models. that itself is a huge confusion. it brakes the connection with the existing customers, and it does nothing in attracting new comers to look further.

you move all the chairs (and furniture) to one side of the titanic and you get a tilted ship

 

Well said, and I totally agree.

 

you hit the iceburg either way probably.

actually moving ALL the chairs and furniture might be the ONLY way to avoid hitting the iceburg (or sinking).

but i get it, people don't like change.

every new generation of corvette is the 'end' to corvette loyalists who say it's changed too much, but every time they're wrong.

for infiniti (with so little to lose) it's about product not labels. the g sedan / coupe have done better than anything else for them (i think), so letting that 'name' go was probably the worst part, but as of right now, the g is also nothing special.

 

I agree. Infiniti no longer has a special car in their lineup. I moved over to the Is350 because I thought it was significantly better than the Q50. Btw, I had a Q50S that was fully loaded for a week so I had an excellent basis of comparison with the IS350.