When Nissan’s luxury car arm, Infiniti, decided on worldwide expansion and arrived in South Africa last year, the range of offerings they launched were highly impressive, but hamstrung by a lack of efficient 4-cylinder engines. To Infiniti’s credit, they said as much at the launch of the brand in South Africa and hinted towards an unlikely future tie-up with a potential engine partner.
Well, Infiniti are a part of Nissan, which is a part of Renault-Nissan alliance, which is now tied-up most recently with Caterham, Dacia, Red Bull Racing in Formula 1, so surely they can find a suitable engine somewhere in between that lot? Nope, as it turns out, the Renault-Nissan alliance in fact has a partnership with Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler and they will be supplying 4-cylinder engines in the upcoming new Q50 sedan.
After such a convoluted line of succession, the Infiniti Q50 sedan (the replacement for the M-sedan we received here last year) will be the first model in Nissan’s luxury range to feature a 4-cylinder engine and the first sourced from the Mercedes-Benz partnership.
The engine in question is sourced from strategically advantageous European and U.S. plants and the timeous news comes a whole three-years after Daimler and the Renault Nissan alliance announced their strategic technology sharing and development partnership back in 2010.
Frustratingly, details of the new Mercedes-Benz sourced engines have not yet been revealed, although they are most likely petrol and diesel engines that already exist in the Mercedes-Benz C-Class and E-Class line-ups. Before this deal, Infiniti could only make do with the thirsty 3.7-litre 6-cylinder petrol engine we tested in the EX37, and the 6-cylinder diesel derivative you’ll find in the FX30d.
The Infiniti Q50 is therefore expected to benefit from the mid-sized 1.8-litre petrol and 2.2-litre diesel powerplants. The former is available with outputs of 135 kW and 270 Nm of torque in the C200 and 150 kW and 310 Nm of torque in the C250. The latter produces 100 kW and 330 Nm of torque in the C200 CDI and a meaty 150 kW and 500 Nm of torque in the C250 CDI.
“The Infiniti Q50 is a world-class sports saloon with an engine line-up that will clearly demonstrate its intentions to be a major player within the European premium market,” said Bernard Loire, Vice President, Infiniti Africa, Middle East and Europe (AMIE). The Infiniti Q50 will officially debut at next month’s 2013 Geneva International Motor Show.
