Infiniti Q60 Black S revealed

In Renault’s F1 car, separate motor generator units gather energy from braking and exhaust gas heat and re-deploy it, via a lithium ion battery pack, to power both the engine’s crankshaft and turbo compressor. The Black S engineering team want to replicate as much of this system as possible, a large and costly exercise in a road car application. Since the top-spec Q60 already costs £46,700 already, any production Black S would probably command a price well beyond £60,000.

“We’re very serious about our involvement in F1,” says Tommaso Volpe, Infiniti’s director of global motorsport. “We want the Black S to be seen as the road-going embodiment of our technical partnership with Renault. We are developing the power unit now, a big challenge because our car is already tightly packaged. But indications of success are good.”

The partners’ confidence in the Black S project is underscored by the powerful presence of Mat Weaver’s body redesign, which completely replaces the Q60’s front and rear bumpers with more aggressive, downforce generating designs, plus neat side-skirts, working air-vents in the bonnet and front wings and massive “blued” titanium tailpipes. The Black S wheels are special design 21-inch alloys.

“The brief was easy,” says Weaver. “This is a true ‘form follows function’ job that reflects the aesthetics of the Black S’s race-bred engineering. The carbon fibre components and the aerodynamic features fit well with the car’s high performance, and our partner’s racing heritage.”