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Yeah LOL, I can tell and it works for you. BTW, it is very disappointing at Nissan. Certain execs just should go at this point and be more sensible about who they hire in their place or in powerful positions. Nissan FWD will get all the goodies, while RWD and Infiniti struggles. There are more problems even now, but I am hopeful they meet 2021 as launch date of the new EV-capable architecture and finish the Z34 refresh.
Infiniti lost me as a customer, after they delayed the CV37 coupe, now known as the Q60 and then removed the 6MT (like in the Q50), I had enjoyed in my 2008 G35S sedan. My goal upon 2013 graduation, was to upgrade to the CV37 coupe.
Everything was fine with the G's future, until MB got in the mix in spring 2010. The current car known as the Q50, being developed as "V37", was intended to be unveiled as the 2012MY G37 at the NYIAS in April 2011. They cancelled the car and redid somethings from about April 2010 to June 2011, when the final design was re-frozen. 2010 would've been the year, a 3rd generation G37 coupe design would've been approved design-wise and then launched in late 2012 as MY2013.
That hadn't reached final form like the sedan by spring 2010, so it was withheld and focus was turned solely to the sedan until 2011, when work resumed on the coupe. In 2012, they had just about approved the final CV37 coupe design for 2014 launch as a MY2015, when new President Johan de Nysschen saw it in mid-2012 and sent them back to the drawing board. He said, it looked like a Q50 with the rear doors chopped off. In 2013, the final article now known as the Q60 was approved by the board and then engineered for production until 2016, when it was released as a MY 2017 car.
That car I had waited some 9 years for disappointed me and forced me to forget getting another Infiniti altogether. My first long-term car was that 2008 G35S 6MT, so I have never forgiven them for omitting that option, yet including it in the MB-sourced 2.2 diesel Q50 in other export markets. The 2.2 diesel needs eons more power, compared to the VQ37 and VR30DDTT.
I have very deep Nissan connections and I ask the right questions, without implicating anyone in violation of NDAs. My Toyota connections are much more shallow of course, so I have to rely more on asking around and is much harder to figure out. Many other engineers or team members do not mind giving me an idea if a design has been set or not for a future model, but often issue with me asking what it actually looks like and send me away if it gets to that. My approach is: I'll see it, when it comes and don't like to push too much, to scare someone off from answering my questions. Also, I have access to industry databases for certain suppliers, which does at times give away a stage of development a model is at. Not to mention being very knowledgeable about product planning patterns. It all comes together, but is not always 100% obviously.
Well, it's not for the 2021 model year, unless production can be magically shifted forward. Believe it or not, the BMW F30 doesn't even offer cooled seats neither does Lexus nor Alfa Romeo. Only the Jaguar XE, with ventilated seats on the C-Class and A4. He is referring to calendar year of launch not the 2021 model year, unless they will somehow manage to introduce it mid-year.
I'm sorry, but this is why I can be very pedantic at times. Model years are not literal, meaning they don't represent real dates in time when a car is released. They are more like a season that changes year-to-year, so I really suggest people just take it as rule of thumb, that a given model year is released the preceding numerical value as in 2012 Model = 2011 release. Nowadays it is an exception, to have a model year released the same year like the 2018 LS 500. Even that was unveiled in January 2017, so that isn't saying much. Your Q50 example highlights this and is more extreme for the former Infiniti M nameplate.
The Y51 M37 and M56 were not launched in 2011. The Y51 was introduced in Japan in late 2009 as the Nissan Fuga and Infiniti M production began in December 2009 ahead of its March 2010 launch date as a 2011 model. Therefore, this car has been in production for almost 9 years and has another 2.5 years to go. It was indeed supposed to be redesigned for MY 2018, then that got cancelled. Refreshed a second time for MY 2019, then cancelled again. The product planning decisions for this car have been abysmal and the last time a Q70 clay model actually made it to production, was the one completed in 2012 for the MY 2015 facelift. So, all the other clay models and design proposals haven't made it anywhere since 2012. The most jobless designers in the world. The latest clay model, hopefully makes it through to 2021. They are know having to cram in Q70 and Q50 replacements into one calendar year and might not even make it by December 2021, due to lateness of certain engineering targets.
As I said above, it was not released in 2011. It was both unveiled and entered production in the fourth quarter of 2009, arriving in showrooms in early 2010. The basic design was set 11 years ago in 2007, just as minor changes arrived for MY2008 on the previous generation M35 and M45. Both the QX80 and Q70 were supposed to run parallel, as both the QX56 and M56 designs were approved in 2007, QX80 and Q70 facelifts approved in 2012 for MY 2015. There was no money to redesign them ground-up for MY 2018, especially no thanks to the Titan situation, Mitsubishi takeover, excess volume of Nissans, and many more. Yet the goldmine QX80 got another facelift MY 2018/19, while the Q70 languishes untouched.
This was a proposal from August 2014 for the next Q70 in small scale clay. This was scheduled for Spring 2018 as a late arrival MY2018.
Proposal for the next generation Q50, as some of you already saw a many months back from me
The UK Studio BTW partly designed the Y51 exteriors and interiors back in 2006-07, while the previous generation M (Y50) interior was designed in Japan during 2000 and the first half of 2002.That was very well received upon launch in 2005 and was start of Infiniti/Nissan return to quality interiors. The brand didn't start having problems, until ROI suffered with the more expensive interiors of the late 2000s/early 2010s and abandoned projects/production models at 11th hour, plus recession and 2011 earthquake.
A lot of money was poured into the Nissan-Ram partnership, which went to waste. As well as early Q45 replacement and some planned halo and EV models that got nixed or were losses like the Leaf. A base Q50 and Q56 never made it to production due to the market crash. The FX50 was never supposed to use that 5.0 V8 engine alone, as it was supposed to be shared with a flagship Q50, below Q56.
Yeah, Nissan Design in La Jolla had created that concept in 1998, following cancellation of the 300ZX in 1996 and official plans to not redesign it in 1997. In early 1999 it was unveiled and got mixed reactions. Within months, Renault sent Carlos Ghosn to restructure Nissan and he ironically championed a new generation. A new design program began immediately and by February of 2000, the 350Z final design was fully defined and later shown on January 8, 2001 at the NAIAS as a "concept". It went on sale in the summer of 2002 as a 2003 model. In late 2005, the 370Z design was approved during a difficult period following Hurricane Katrina, where they had issue with molding the clay models for it. The current stage is full size clay for the updated Z34, while the Z35 is not on target.
Those are some nice concepts, I like that Q70 coupe and the sedan on the bottom looked sharp.
I remember there was a site called Busybeetoys.com that would have all the concepts/mock ups/sketches/rumors from Japan in the late 90's/early 2000's. I loved going on that site and became obsessed with what they were doing with the next Z car and rumored Infinti coupe along with new NSX and Supra(4000GT) that were supposed to come out soon. FreshAlloy.com was also the big Nissan Z rumor site back then. Unfortunately the 350Z underwhelmed me after all that build up and then the other Japanese performance cars did not happen, I liked the G35 coupe though, almost got one.
Those are some nice concepts, I like that Q70 coupe and the sedan on the bottom looked sharp.
I remember there was a site called Busybeetoys.com that would have all the concepts/mock ups/sketches/rumors from Japan in the late 90's/early 2000's. I loved going on that site and became obsessed with what they were doing with the next Z car and rumored Infinti coupe along with new NSX and Supra(4000GT) that were supposed to come out soon. FreshAlloy.com was also the big Nissan Z rumor site back then. Unfortunately the 350Z underwhelmed me after all that build up and then the other Japanese performance cars did not happen, I liked the G35 coupe though, almost got one.
Interesting, I was a bit too young then and new to the internet (late 1990s), so I only knew about official websites (i.e. Lexus.com or MBUSA.com) didn't really know to use Google at all to search. That would've helped a great deal if I did, to find certain websites back then. I pretty much had to depend on my dad tagging me along to unveilings or special viewings of future models in development or solely magazines, until my teen years in the next decade. It certainly didn't help, that I didn't know as a kid how long models really took to develop and that it didn't happen overnight nor done to the very last minute.
Why didn't you get the G35 coupe BTW? Bad interior materials? BTW, the NSX was the worst rumour of them all. As for the "4000GT", those were some terrible journalists. Mitsubishi lost way too much on their $0, no payments for many months scheme and were never the same.
I agree on this as well. They already made an attempt to make it look like a 240z with both the 350z and 370z, they had some cues on them from the 240z and it was honestly a disaster. The last 370z Nismo is pretty nice, not too bad but they could do so much better. All the other concepts trying to resemble the 240z are horrendous and should be considered a sin to even come up with those. They need to come up with a new design and something that actually looks good and do as they did when the 300zx z32 came out. It completely changed everything out there and performance wise, it was rivaling Corvettes and even Ferraris like the 348. If they come up with something based off the z32 and the q60, they could potentially have a pretty awesome car. I know Nissan can do it, they have one of the greatest current cars! the GTR! so I'm pretty sure they can come up with something better than some 4 cylinder, Altima looking, crappy new Z.
See? this is sexy
I just had my z32 painted... even made some videos, I wish Nissan would come up with something that had that same impact as it did almost 30 years ago. To this day I have people ask me if this is a new model or something and now that it got new paint, I'm sure I'll be getting plenty of people asking stuff and giving thumbs up
I just had my z32 painted... even made some videos, I wish Nissan would come up with something that had that same impact as it did almost 30 years ago. To this day I have people ask me if this is a new model or something and now that it got new paint, I'm sure I'll be getting plenty of people asking stuff and giving thumbs up
Interesting, I was a bit too young then and new to the internet (late 1990s), so I only knew about official websites (i.e. Lexus.com or MBUSA.com) didn't really know to use Google at all to search. That would've helped a great deal if I did, to find certain websites back then. I pretty much had to depend on my dad tagging me along to unveilings or special viewings of future models in development or solely magazines, until my teen years in the next decade. It certainly didn't help, that I didn't know as a kid how long models really took to develop and that it didn't happen overnight nor done to the very last minute.
Why didn't you get the G35 coupe BTW? Bad interior materials? BTW, the NSX was the worst rumour of them all. As for the "4000GT", those were some terrible journalists. Mitsubishi lost way too much on their $0, no payments for many months scheme and were never the same.
Back in the late 90's/early 2000's car sites, especially future rumor sites were not very good at all. For some reason that BusyBeeToy site was the site for the rumors/concepts/renderings, it was actually a Japanese toy site that had a Japanese and sometimes Euro car rumor section, I did not even have the internet back then, I would just go to the library at college where they had it and go on that site and others. FreshAlloy used to be a great Nissan site, good forum, and was the best US site for the 350Z rumors. Now neither exist.
Yeah, NSX was supposed to get a 4.0 V8 with around 400hp according to that site, rendering looked good(man I wish I saved the pictures from that site because the renderings of the next Z car, Supra, NSX, BMWs, GTR, looked so cool), next Supra was supposed to go higher end with a 4 liter V8 which is why they called it a 4000GT, next Z was supposed to get a turbo 6 cylinder around 375hp with styling similar to the 300ZX.
This was one of the concept pics of the 4000GT floating around
I tried to talk my dad into getting a G35c when they first came out but the rear seat was too small, he ended up getting a Acura CL. I looked into a G35coupe and a Supra Turbo a few years later but noticed the rear seat being small and not a lot of trunk space. I had to take a long drive for work on the East Coast for a few years so a 2 door lacking room was not going to be the most practical car when I had to take a lot of stuff with me and move my stuff from a storage unit to a apartment and back. At that time I also was really looking into a 2nd Gen GS sedan, always wanted one ever since first reading about it and seeing them on the road and just started concentrating more on getting a used one when I decided to get a sedan. The interior of the G35coupe did not bother me too much even though I noticed there was some cost cutting but I am glad I got a GS430 instead as I took several long trips in it and it was much more practical, I loved the V8, still miss it.
Back in the late 90's/early 2000's car sites, especially future rumor sites were not very good at all. For some reason that BusyBeeToy site was the site for the rumors/concepts/renderings, it was actually a Japanese toy site that had a Japanese and sometimes Euro car rumor section, I did not even have the internet back then, I would just go to the library at college where they had it and go on that site and others. FreshAlloy used to be a great Nissan site, good forum, and was the best US site for the 350Z rumors. Now neither exist.
Yeah, NSX was supposed to get a 4.0 V8 with around 400hp according to that site, rendering looked good(man I wish I saved the pictures from that site because the renderings of the next Z car, Supra, NSX, BMWs, GTR, looked so cool), next Supra was supposed to go higher end with a 4 liter V8 which is why they called it a 4000GT, next Z was supposed to get a turbo 6 cylinder around 375hp with styling similar to the 300ZX.
This was one of the concept pics of the 4000GT floating around
I tried to talk my dad into getting a G35c when they first came out but the rear seat was too small, he ended up getting a Acura CL. I looked into a G35coupe and a Supra Turbo a few years later but noticed the rear seat being small and not a lot of trunk space. I had to take a long drive for work on the East Coast for a few years so a 2 door lacking room was not going to be the most practical car when I had to take a lot of stuff with me and move my stuff from a storage unit to a apartment and back. At that time I also was really looking into a 2nd Gen GS sedan, always wanted one ever since first reading about it and seeing them on the road and just started concentrating more on getting a used one when I decided to get a sedan. The interior of the G35coupe did not bother me too much even though I noticed there was some cost cutting but I am glad I got a GS430 instead as I took several long trips in it and it was much more practical, I loved the V8, still miss it.
Mag-X was around by 2000 apparently, being somewhat around still and better with reliable rumors than most Japanese sources. (One reason I wouldn't go back in time, is how misleading future news was.) Until you mentinoed it, never realized the Freshalloy is now gone (wow).
From what I remember reading several years ago, the Supra was passed over for P280 (Lexus LFA), but I have to wonder they were even considering a direct replacement back in 1999. By 2000, that car was pretty much dead as a Toyota-badged sports car. Considering that until 2001, Lexus was only a distrubtion channel for Toyota, the P280 project started as a Toyota in 2000 and became a Lexus model gradually. I can only wonder if those rumors back then were based on the LFA project.
Good that the GS 430 was a better choice for you, as I've always liked that generation of GS and never really cared for the 1st generation car. There was a certain feel the S160 GS had, I cannot describe with words. Particularly the post-refresh GS 430 SportDesign. A good match for the E39 5-Series of that time. I never felt that way behind the wheel of an E430 (W210 E-Class) nor Jaguar S-Type. That being said, I've usually never let practicality determine what I drive. Although when I lived in Manhattan and bought my first in my name (Subaru BRZ), I could easily relate to why you needed a 4 door while on the go and that car lasted only 5 months in my stable. One of my dumbest car buying decisions ever on a whim (at least in America).
I agree on this as well. They already made an attempt to make it look like a 240z with both the 350z and 370z, they had some cues on them from the 240z and it was honestly a disaster. The last 370z Nismo is pretty nice, not too bad but they could do so much better. All the other concepts trying to resemble the 240z are horrendous and should be considered a sin to even come up with those. They need to come up with a new design and something that actually looks good and do as they did when the 300zx z32 came out. It completely changed everything out there and performance wise, it was rivaling Corvettes and even Ferraris like the 348. If they come up with something based off the z32 and the q60, they could potentially have a pretty awesome car. I know Nissan can do it, they have one of the greatest current cars! the GTR! so I'm pretty sure they can come up with something better than some 4 cylinder, Altima looking, crappy new Z.
See? this is sexy
I just had my z32 painted... even made some videos, I wish Nissan would come up with something that had that same impact as it did almost 30 years ago. To this day I have people ask me if this is a new model or something and now that it got new paint, I'm sure I'll be getting plenty of people asking stuff and giving thumbs up
Your Z32 is beautiful, tasteful mods. Better looking then most cars on the street, that design was a home run, they really should have just evolved that design instead of designing something totally different.
09-21-18, 10:30 PM
BTW, it is very disappointing at Nissan. Certain execs just should go at this point and be more sensible about who they hire in their place or in powerful positions. Nissan FWD will get all the goodies, while RWD and Infiniti struggles. There are more problems even now, but I am hopeful they meet 2021 as launch date of the new EV-capable architecture and finish the Z34 refresh.
