Infiniti kills the convertible

Nissan luxury brand Infiniti will release its newest mid-size sports car, the Q60 Coupe without a convertible model in the range for the first time in 14 years.

The new Q60, which will go on sale in Australia from November, will instead be available in just one body type – a coupe – along with the choice of turbocharged four-cylinder and, next year, six-cylinder power.

That will spell the end of Infiniti's current two-pronged Q60 two-door range, which was previously known as the G37 coupe and convertible.

Speaking at the global launch of the Q60 this week, Infiniti senior manager of product strategy Gerardo Carmona told motoring.com.au that slow sales of the drop-top were to blame for its discontinuation, Infiniti instead focussing its efforts on the hard-top range.

“We’re actually focussing only on the coupe version. The convertible is off the table,” Carmona said.

“Convertible volume is pretty small, and we wanted to focus on making a big improvement to the car [Q60 Coupe].

“From 2002 to the second-generation there wasn’t a dramatic change on the car, and we didn’t want that to happen again – we wanted to launch a drastically different Q60 – therefore all the efforts went into improving this one, rather than having multiple variants of the car.”

Carmona couldn’t say whether the changes would affect the replacement for the Nissan 370Z, which shares some of its FM platform architecture with the new Q60.

The Q60 Coupe will initially land in Australia with a turbocharged four-cylinder engine, followed around May 2017 by the flagship 298kW twin-turbo V6 version.

Infiniti is yet to reveal Australian specification or pricing but – in line with the outgoing model and its most direct competitors – the new Q60 Coupe is expected to be priced from around $64,000.

Visit motoring.com.au again on October 3 for our first drive report of the new Q60.