Wednesday 26th May 2010

Infiniti M and G To Share Platform With E-Class?

Mercedes and Renault-Nissan alliance could bear some strange fruit

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The recently announced strategic and technical alliance between Renault-Nissan and Daimler has already borne plenty of rumour-fruit, but the latest whisperings are particularly interesting.

Japanese car magazine Best Car has reported that the replacements for the current Infiniti M saloon and G coupe will share a common platform architecture with the Mercedes E-class.

There's no official confirmation from Merc or Renault-Nissan, but it's a move that makes sense: Mercedes-Benz is already set donate four- and six-cylinder petrol and diesel engines to Infiniti, so a broader platform-sharing strategy is a natural step forward from that.

So, what with this news and the possibility of some high-speed Infiniti models in the future, does that mean a twin-turbo Mercedes V8 could find its way into an Infiniti M or G? It certainly sounds like an intriguing prospect, albeit a bit far-fetched...

[Staffy1984]

Can't wait for the Brabus Infiniti,

Imagine a G37 with 800bhp, crazy!!!

[Mr_Sukebe]

That's an interesting update.
Makes me wonder how they'll deal with brand differentiation. I got the impression that Infiniti were positioning themselves as a "cheaper BMW", whereas Merc have more recently taken the shotgun approach of every class and any niche that sticks it's head up. As such, there appears to be a lot of brand overlap for Infiniti.

[soad]

Staffy1984 said:

Can't wait for the Brabus Infiniti,

Imagine a G37 with 800bhp, crazy!!!

Aye - the possibility of even more power.

[Tinykin]

Why would Nissan want MB 4 and 6 cyl petrol engines? Or is that the MB engines are cheaper or more emissions friendly.

[Panda Gunman]

Sweet, an AMG Skyline! (Before anyone goes "Eh? He's crazy", the G37 is a rebadged Nissan Skyline).
This might mean the crazy jap tuners giving Brabus a run for their money.

[infradig]

Does that mean all the posh cabs on the road will be Nissans instead of Chrysler 300C's in a couple of years?

[mattiselvis]

I'm running an M35 at the moment - a very nice car with a great V6 and a fine chassis. Not sure what basing it on the E-Class will bring really.

[Blue Meanie]

Is the E class chassis better than the FM chassis that Infiniti use? The FM chassis is the same chassis used in the 350Z, 370Z, and a whole bunch of other Nissan cars.... Can't really see the point. I can see the point 'maybe' of some engines, but the 3.7 V6 and the V8 they use are hardly poor engines. I think it would be a move away from infinite being seen as separate entity, and it will confuse what exactly it is.

[Speedraser]

I think it would be a real shame. Now, Infiniti makes some interesting and worthy cars, and Mercedes makes some interesting and worthy cars. If they end up sharing a platform, there is NO WAY that the two companies' cars will be as distinct as they are now, now matter how much they claim they'll respect each other's "characteristics" and "personalities" and whatever else. The more platform sharing there is across marques/brands, the less interesting and diverse our choices become. Eventually, we'll end up with one big car platform, one mid-size, and one small car platform, and ALL brands will be based on those. How boring.

[renrut]

So you'll end up with a clio with a nissan interior and a mercedes price tag? Alternatively a rwd hothatch with bombproof reliability?

Obviously not that extreme but it could create some hideous mash ups without there being much possibility of anything truly unique coming out of it. So it'll be a an accountants dream then, cheap cross platform engines, for 3 supposedly different brands.