Is Nissan really about to donate the GT-R engine to premium brand Infiniti for the Q50 Eau Rouge? The question will be answered definitively at Geneva but to tease our appetites ahead of the show Infiniti has released a video offering a clue to what it'll sound like.
Headphones ready? OK, what do you think?
Well, the line trotted out at Detroit and again in the press release accompanying this video is a "big personality, V-cylinder engine with forced induction". Yup, sounds that way.
In our last story, post-Detroit reveal, we quoted Infiniti President Johan de Nysschen as saying "If we built this car I would expect it to feature over 500hp and 600lb ft of torque."
Q50 - now has mouth to go with trousers
In this new press release he goes - a little - further. "We thought it only fitting the Q50 Eau Rouge's beating heart was suitably sporting. Our engineers have perfectly captured the tone of Infiniti's take on premium performance, and a car that is as impressive as the Q50 Eau Rouge sounds is surely a car to challenge performance cars in the premium sector."
But would the GT-R team really offer up the near-fetishised VR38DETT engine - handbuilt in cleanrooms by specially trained engineers - to another team? The engine is a key element in the GT-R's unique identity so you'd have to expect they'd put up a fight.
And that promise of 600lb ft goes against the GT-R engine too - it'll comfortably do the 500hp-plus thing but even in the 600hp NISMO version offers 'just' 481lb ft. True, the 3.8-litre capacity would be on a par with the 4.0-litre turbo V8 coming in the new C63 AMG and that already in the Audi RS6, as well as satisfy markets where engines over 4.0-litres are penalised on tax.
But to hit that torque figure surely Infiniti needs a V8? It might look in-house to the Nissan-derived 5.0-litre V8 used in its own QX70. In normally aspirated form it delivers 390hp and 369lb ft but with the promised turbos could do the numbers. Then again the sound clip doesn't sound especially V8. So maybe a revised VR38DETT tuned for torque as well as horsepower might be it after all.
Whatever the engine, it looks like with this and the Lexus RC F the Germans aren't going to have it all their own way with the next generation of fast coupes and saloons.