The US market may have made Infiniti what it is today, but Nissan's luxury arm is putting more power and better equipment into its vehicles destined for sale in Europe later this year. Engineers have made 300-500 changes per car, including tweaked styling, high-end knobs, bigger brakes, better windshield wipers, improved stability systems, and a seven-speed automatic transmission. Infiniti is also planning to add the 3.7-liter V6 to the overseas 2009 FX, which is more powerful than the 3.5-liter engine we'll receive Stateside. With no four-cylinder or diesel models planned until 2010, Infiniti will still be playing catch-up with its European competitors for the near-term.
The reason for the many improvements is that Infiniti is facing an up-hill battle to woo luxury customers away from very entrenched Euro brands like Mercedes and BMW. That's all well and good, but why not just make most of these improvements in the US market as well? Infiniti is a very good luxury brand, but it's getting its butt kicked in sales by the likes of Lexus, Mercedes, BMW, and Cadillac. We like fancy knobs and seven speed automatics, too.
Buying a luxury car or SUV is the dream of many readers, and while a BMW or Mercedes will buy you some instant street-cred, they'll also cost you an arm and a leg if it ever needs fixing. A repair that may be no big deal for a Chevy Cobalt can cost much more in a luxury vehicle due to high-tech gadgets and more expensive materials. Forbes put together lists of the ten most expensive to repair luxury and non-luxury vehicles over a five year period.
The most costly vehicle to fix overall was the Dodge Viper, which came in at $1,641, and the most expensive luxury vehicle was the Audi A8 at $1,640. On the luxury list, every vehicle came from Europe, with zero entries from Detroit or Japan. The story was much different for the non-luxury vehicles, with heavy-duty trucks and SUVs making up the lion's share of the list. The Subaru Impreza and Mini Cooper were the only imports to make Forbes' dubious top ten. Hit the jump to view the most expensive luxury cars to repair, and click on the link below to view the priciest non-luxury list.
Spend more for the cutting edge of luxury and style, and you could wind up taking a larger whack than most when it's time to trade in that sled. The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) is reporting that premium luxury vehicles actually have the highest annual depreciation rate. The reason for the stone-dropping value is that luxury car buyers tend to want the latest and greatest. The preference for the next big thing leads to owners turning in their current cars faster than people who will drive a Taurus until its wheels fall off. Manufacturers also keep rolling out new versions of their top-tier cars to keep these customers coming back for more, which also takes a bite out of resale value since the next iteration is often right around the corner. Those cars that don't get refreshed as quickly end up with heavier incentives to maintain their sales volume in between refreshenings. In the end, it's a win-win for everybody. Automakers continue to move iron, early adopters beta test the products for the rest of us, and if you're willing to be a little bit behind the curve, you can pick up a three-year-old car for a small potatoes and still feel like you're living large.
Topping the list of annual value-losers is Jaguar's XJ8, which drops 25 percent in just a year. Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Lexus and Volvo also make appearances in NADA's top ten list of dubious distinction. The luxury cars are kept company by such ignominious vehicles as the Suzuki Verona, Hyundai Accent and Kia Rio. Judging from those rankings, it looks like the top and bottom extremes lose their value the fastest. If you're in the market for a Joneses-pleasing marque, this is good news.
[Source: NADA via Winding Road, Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty]
Before unveiling the simply fantastic new GT-R in Los Angeles, Nissan-Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn did not appear to be a big fan of high-end halo cars. Renault's line-up is limited primarily to compact hatchbacks and sedans, while the Infiniti Q45 was discontinued two years ago without a replacement. But with the GT-R now exceeding expectations, and Renault looking at new flagship models, a new Q flagship is back on the table.
Although Infiniti was until now just for the North American market, like its rivals Lexus and Acura, the brand is being expanded into other emerging luxury markets like China, Korea and Russia. Infiniti dealers from those four markets recently met with Ghosn at Nissan's R&D center in Atsugi, Japan, where they were shown preliminary alternatives for a new Q.
Trouble is, the various dealers from different markets all wanted different things. According to reports, Ghosn isn't convinced a new flagship luxury sedan for Infiniti is the way to go, but he's giving his managers the opportunity to convince him otherwise. If they can present a compelling business case, a new Q could be around the corner.
If a G-Class Mercedes stirs dispassionate responses, there may still be a Mercedes for you. While the Gelandewagen is no joke in its own right, Daimler's own ultimate terra bully would roll right over it. Unimogs have been around for about fifty years, and were originally designed as go-anywhere, do-anything work trucks. The U500 Black Edition Unimog is still akin to a vehicular Chuck Norris, but luxed-up to the point that you'd hate to mar the blingy pedals with muddy boots.
England's BigLorryBlog had a chance to bruise the earth with one of these, and found it an object of workmen's desire. The U500 they sampled was not outfitted with any hard labor devices, so the ride was a bit bouncy, but nobody was complaining from the leather clad driver's perch with its own suspension. At €250,000, it's not cheap, but the good stuff never is. Here's what you say when someone questions your buying decision: "Buy the best, cry once. Now get outta my way before I make your Paseo scrap."
This isn't exactly what the recording industry had in mind when The Beatles went gold for the first time. But then, who would have predicted back then that the Iron Curtain would fall and that Eastern Europe would grow into one of the world's largest markets for tasteless luxury items.
This 1968 Volkswagen Beetle, unveiled at this year's Luxury Show in Bucharest, Romania, is covered in tiles made of glass and 18-karat gold. We'd say if you have to ask, you can't afford it, but it strikes us that the whole point of building or buying something this perversely ostentatious is to flaunt to the world just how much it's worth. In this case, the figure is actually just $88,000.
If you're thinking that eighty-eight grand will buy you a well-equipped Porsche 911, we're not far behind you. But then, whoever would even consider buying something this ridiculous probably has a couple of "ordinary" Porsches lying around the grounds already.
Click the image to view the high-resolution gallery
Even before safety was such a critical part of the buying process, Volvo had pushed the envelope by offering cutting-edge technology and cold, hard steel to protect its vehicles' occupants. Today, everything from luxury BMWs to basic Hyundais have five star crash protection, but Volvo is doing what it can to raise the safety bar even higher. The new-for-2007 Volvo S80 is the Swedish automaker's flagship sedan, with amenities like a V8 engine, all-wheel drive, an upscale interior, and classy yet understated looks.
Where the S80 really makes its impression with Volvo faithful, however, is how far the automaker has gone to make its full-size sedan a safety flagship. Volvo has billed the S80 as having the latest safety advancements, while also packing the luxury amenities customers want, so we decided to put the S80 through the wringer in the Autoblog Garage. Hit the jump for impressions from our one-week test of the 2007 Volvo S80 V8 AWD.
The Toyota Prius has been a popular choice with the trendy set, despite its lackluster interior appointments. One customer across the pond has sought to rectify that by commissioning a jazzed-up version of the hybrid automobile.
The special Prius you see here has been repainted using a metallic Lexus tint called Brechin Slate. The interior was completely reupholstered in hand-stitched leather. Finally, the boring stock wheels were replaced with polished steel Fox RS3 rims. The modifications were supervised by Jemca Toyota, which contracted out to various specialists to bring the car up to spec for the customer.
All the retrofitments brought the total price of the Prius to a whopping £32,900, a considerable premium over the £17,765 base price the hybrid commands in the UK. Goes to show that, in such a trendy market especially, you can't put a price on individuality.
To see more pics of this one-of-a-kind creation, follow the link.
Volkswagen's Phaeton could not exactly be described as a run-away success. The German carmaker planned to make a modest 20,000 units, but only managed to sell a quarter that amount. But someone in Wolfsburg must have gotten an "if at first you don't succeed" fortune cookie, and they're determined to give it another shot.
The next Phaeton, as we've reported previously, will save considerably on development costs by sharing its underpinnings with the next A6 from corporate cousin Audi. This, however, is no mere speculation: it comes straight from the mouth of CEO Martin Winterkorn. The end result will be a Phaeton smaller than the one it replaces, bringing costs down and bringing it slightly closer to the top-end Passat to help close the enormous gap in the Volkswagen model line-up.
The current slow-selling Phaeton cost Volkswagen a bundle to develop, but all was not lost as the platform ended up providing the basis for the more successful Bentley Continental range, with its coupe, cabrio and sedan variations. What will happen with the next Continental, you ask? Sources suggest that it will take its underpinnings from the latest Audi A8.
All in all this amounts to a change of direction for the German auto group, which has a history of investing heavily into new models which compete with offerings from their own subsidiaries.
We thought it was getting to be a long time since Forbes had put together another Top Ten list, but this time the journal of choice for successful businessmen put a twist on the annual tradition: instead of simply picking ten cars and assigning ranks by degree of sexiness, Forbes picked the sexiest ride for each of ten categories of personalities, including ballers, mobsters, divorcés and talent agents. If you don't fit into any of the categories, chances are you probably don't have the cash to spend on any of these cars. But if you've got the greenbacks and don't match the list, you might have to figure it out for yourself.
It's all a matter of taste, but Chris Bangle fans will notice the conspicuous absence of any BMWs, while enthusiasts of Italian automobiles will take note of the the Maserati, the Lamborghini and the two Ferraris that made the cut.
Here's what Forbes has nominated for this year:
Sexiest Car for Hip-Hop Moguls: Rolls-Royce Phantom
Sexiest Car for Hollywood Agents: Lexus LS Hybrid
Sexiest Car for Miami Beach Plastic Surgeons: Lamborghini Murciélago Roadster
Sexiest Car for Mobsters: Cadillac Escalade & EXT
Sexiest Car for Newly Divorced Dads: Chevrolet Corvette Convertible
Sexiest Car for Newly Divorced Moms: Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG
Sexiest Car for Lobbyists: Cadillac CTS
Sexiest Car for Forbes Readers: Maserati Quattroporte
Sexiest Car for NBA Players: Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano
Sexiest Car for Driving Purists: Aston Martin DB9 and Ferrari F430 (tie)
The US market may have made Infiniti what it is today, but Nissan's luxury arm is putting more power and better equipment into its vehicles destined for sale in Europe later this year. Engineers have made 300-500 changes per car, including tweaked styling, high-end knobs, bigger brakes, better windshield wipers, improved stability systems, and a seven-speed automatic transmission. Infiniti is also planning to add the 3.7-liter V6 to the overseas 2009 FX, which is more powerful than the 3.5-liter engine we'll receive Stateside. With no four-cylinder or diesel models planned until 2010, Infiniti will still be playing catch-up with its European competitors for the near-term.
Spend more for the cutting edge of luxury and style, and you could wind up taking a larger whack than most when it's time to trade in that sled. The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) is reporting that premium luxury vehicles actually have the highest annual depreciation rate. The reason for the stone-dropping value is that luxury car buyers tend to want the latest and greatest. The preference for the next big thing leads to owners turning in their current cars faster than people who will drive a Taurus until its wheels fall off. Manufacturers also keep rolling out new versions of their top-tier cars to keep these customers coming back for more, which also takes a bite out of resale value since the next iteration is often right around the corner. Those cars that don't get refreshed as quickly end up with heavier incentives to maintain their sales volume in between refreshenings. In the end, it's a win-win for everybody. Automakers continue to move iron, early adopters beta test the products for the rest of us, and if you're willing to be a little bit behind the curve, you can pick up a three-year-old car for a small potatoes and still feel like you're living large. 
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