Carlos Ghosn’s bright idea (formulated, one imagines, not long after he considered canning Nissan’s luxury wing entirely) of turning Infiniti into the Japanese BMW has still not gained serious traction in Europe, despite a wholesale rebranding of the line-up.
Nevertheless, the Q30, demonstrates a more cogent step forward in the strategy.
The Q30 is a premium compact hatchback – crucial fodder in Europe if you wish to generate meaningful sales volume – and a direct product of the wide-ranging partnership that Renault-Nissan sealed with German giant Daimler several years ago.
So rather than employing the CMF-CD platform that underpins both the Nissan Pulsar and the Renault Mégane, the Q30 is underpinned – quite overtly in places, as we’ll see – by the same architecture used by the Mercedes A-Class. Something that is transferred over to the QX30, which is a raised Q30 essentially, with Infiniti looking to tap into the lucrative premium compact SUV craze.
Additionally, the new models are the first Infinitis to be built in Europe, specifically at Nissan’s Sunderland plant, which has been expanded for the purpose.
Like the platform, the engines are inherited from Daimler (apart from the 1.5-litre diesel, which, while used in the A-Class, will be familiar to many as Renault’s workmanlike dCi).
For the purposes of this test, however, we’ll focus on the 120bhp 1.6-litre petrol motor, mated to a standard six-speed manual gearbox. The range is completed with a 2.0-litre petrol and a 2.2-litre diesel units.
At £20,550 in lower-end SE trim, the new model counts everything from a Ford Focus to an Audi A3 as a potential rival.
That’s a steep face to climb when you consider that the A-Class – even with the buoyancy aid of Mercedes’ established desirability – was not met with universal acclaim upon introduction. To even go one better would be some achievement for comparative newcomer Infiniti.
