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2017 Infiniti Q30 First Drive

Audi and BMW have owned the premium C-segment for almost a decade now thanks to the A3 and the 1 Series (and 2 Series). Benz's A-Class has become less of a retiree's option and has spawned a popular (if not particularly good) sedan (the CLA) and a crossover (GLA). Down in the lower-class decks, machinery from Subaru is punching well above its weight, while Volkswagen's Golf owns the market in Europe. This all left perennial premium pretenders like Lexus and Infiniti with a problem: how to convince buyers their C-segment machinery was genuinely premium if they were based off a volume-selling donor body from Toyota or Nissan? Mercedes-Benz opened an odd window of opportunity for Infiniti. See, Benz's parent, Daimler, and Infiniti's motherships, Renault and Nissan, have had a technical alliance since 2010. A big technical alliance. So Infiniti was able to develop its hatch to sit atop the A-Class chassis, powertrain, and suspension architecture, though you'd barely know it by looking at the Infiniti from the outside. It has a style all its own, and you're not going to mistake a single angle on the Q30 for anything that comes out of Stuttgart. Nobody makes deeper cuts and curves into its metal than Infiniti. The Japanese brand claims that design is at its core, and whether you love or hate that design, it's hard to argue that point. The Q30 feels like a nicer, easier, more luxurious place than the A-Class on which its based. "Infiniti design is very three-dimensional on every panel. We want to give the sense and the feeling that every Infiniti has been made by an artisan, by hand, not by computer," the company's London-based design boss, Simon Cox, argued. Some will love it, some will hate it, and Infiniti can live with it either way. The point is that the brand is now on the field in a segment that is projected to keep growing at more than 9.4 percent globally, and it got there at a fraction of the normal cost of an all-new car, without having any easily identifiable cap tips to the Benz's far more conservative exterior design. The Benz bits are more obvious inside. Infiniti did such a good job of grafting its design ideas onto the interior hard points that it feels like a nicer, easier, more luxurious place than the A-Class, even if the Benz will be between eight and 10 percent more expensive in most markets. The dash top is clean, swooping, and stitched together beautifully.

Infiniti teases the next generation QX80 SUV

Our latest teaser ahead of the New York Auto Show comes to us from Infiniti. The company didn't reveal anything more than a name, the QX80 Monograph, and the single picture seen above. However, we can determine a few things from this tidbit of information. First, Infiniti is teasing a vehicle that will represent the upcoming successor to the current QX80 SUV, albeit in concept form. Second, the SUV is going to see a fairly significant redesign. The headlights are now lined up with the top half of the grille rather than the bottom, and the tops of the fenders are higher. This provides a more aggressive, square-shouldered appearance. The lower vents and front spoiler look more aggressive, too. The SUV will be fully revealed on April 11 in time for the New York Auto Show, as will more details about the vehicle. At that point we should know if this is a completely new vehicle, or a substantial refresh of the current Nissan Patrol-based SUV. Related Video:

Infiniti invites 22-year-old to work with Red Bull F1 team

Infiniti launched the Infiniti Performance Engineering Academy (IPEA) in 2014, a global talent search for three engineering students from eleven international markets that the automaker would select for a one-year assignment with its Formula One team and road car division. The second year's IPEA competition has concluded, the class of 2015 expanding to five students that get eight months at Infiniti Red Bull Racing headquarters in Milton Keynes, and four months at the company's European Technical Center in Cranfield, UK. Twenty-two-year-old Alex Allmandinger (pictured), a student at the University of Illinois and one of 11 US finalists, is one of those five winners. He'll head to Milton Keynes next month to settle in with the other winners from China, Europe, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. Based on interviews with last year's winners, the IPEA doesn't stick the students in a corner, either – one of them said he had designed seventy parts that went into the RB11 F1 racecar. The video above speaks to some of this year's winners, the video below talks to last year's, and there's a press release below that. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Infiniti gives one U.S. engineering student the Formula One career opportunity of a lifetime NASHVILLE, Tenn. Aug. 20, 2015 – Infiniti has announced that an engineering student from the University of Illinois is one of five global winners of the 2015 Infiniti Performance Engineering Academy (IPEA). For one year, Infiniti will provide 22-year-old Alex Allmandinger with the opportunity to work in Formula One with the Infiniti Red Bull Racing team. After beating 11 other finalists from around the country in an intense shootout event, Allmandinger will move to Infiniti Red Bull Racing headquarters in the UK in September to begin a 12-month placement working with the four-time Formula One World Championship Infiniti Red Bull Racing team, as well as with Infiniti. Allmandinger will spend eight months working on Vehicle Design at the team's headquarters in Milton Keynes, UK – and four months working at Infiniti's European Technical Center in Cranfield – on road car development projects. Formula One technology is more relevant to the automotive industry than ever and will play a key role in the ongoing transfer of technical knowledge and expertise between the race team and Infiniti.