I remember walking into the first Infiniti dealership in Buffalo back when the Q45 just launched. I was the perfect customer...Angry at the Germans for just coasting along with ZERO motivation to do better and charging ridiculous prices for products that were dinosaurs.
I was ready to make a statement as a buyer against the Germans and throw down for either the new Lexus or Infiniti.
In the end I chose the LS400 and the rest was history.
Why did I chose the Lexus? Got a couple hours?
But in a nutshell the Lexus was just the more refined, more revolutionary product.
And since that first Lexus purchase I continued to follow Infiniti in hopes that they would finally get it right.
But in my opinion and the opinion of some many luxury car buyers they NEVER have.
People have made fun of the Big 3 for being brain dead for a long time and they were, but it seems Infiniti AND Acura are a special kind of stupid.
At least though it seems Acura has a couple SMALL rays of sunshine like the new RDX.
But Infiniti...you would think based on their decisions and the people who held the reins that the saying #WTF was birthed thinking of them.
Honestly, I don't remember a single company with more potential that has just gone through the motions like them.
It makes absolutely NO sense.
Fast forward to 2018.
We get a LOT of people who reach out to us asking us what we think of cars and brands.
It helps us gauge the buzz on brands and models.
And we judge a brand and car model based on would WE ever want one or are enough people jazzed about it.
I can honestly say looking through the thousands of emails I get, there is absolutely ZERO buzz or excitement about the Infiniti brand.
And what the saddest thing about that is so many people including us have always looked at them with great potential. The potential to be the Japanese BMW.
But all we've ever gotten was the most uninspired attempt at that and only getting to watch them fall on their faces time after time after time.
We don't claim to know it all but we sure have a good feel of this business and the trends that occur.
So let's throw it out to our experts tonight and ask WHY can't they EVER get it together and WIN?
What do you see that are the major faults are and if there is even hope for them existing five years from today?
Spies, discuss...