Infiniti pondering hot hatch

If you're a motorist reading this article in Australia, there's a good chance you've never heard of Infiniti. It's Nissan's luxury brand, much as Lexus is to Toyota.

But as the brand's compact and more affordable models like the Q30 and QX30 (both of which are based on the Mercedes-Benz A-Class) gain momentum, Infiniti is beginning to see more love from customers Down Under.

Priced from under $40,000, these small five-door vehicles have been widely praised by our team of testers, but few people really know about them. This situation could rapidly change if there was a high-performance, eye-catching hero version.

Aussies love high-performance vehicles -- we buy them in our droves -- and the lack of any type of highly visible road rocket has been one of the many failings of Infiniti, both locally and globally.

Although there's nothing set in stone, Infiniti's global president Roland Krueger told motoring.com.au at the 2017 Geneva motor show that a hot hatch to rival the likes of the Mercedes-AMG A 45 would be considered on a "market by market" basis.

"At the moment we have this performance car [the Q60 Black S concept] and we should focus on it. But the segment for small hatches needs to be assessed market by market and then we can decide if it's a viable to launch a high-performance hatch," said Krueger.

Infiniti's hottest hatches are the Q30 Sport and QX30 GT, powered by a 155kW 2.0-litre turbo-petrol engine.

But rather than employ the same 2.0-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder as the A 45 AMG, any potential Q/QX30 hot hatch is expected to be powered by a performance-boosting hybrid system, in line with Infiniti's two existing 3.5-litre V6 petrol-electric models, the Q5 and Q70 hybrids.

Infiniti launched in Australia in August 2012 with just three dealers and despite the slow start – and continued snail's pace of sales almost five years on – the company's global boss says Australia is an important market for the premium car brand.

"The Australian market is a very interesting market. We are expanding and arguably we're still small but there's a huge potential for us in the Australian market."

Infiniti cars are popular in the USA, where 138,293 of them found buyers in 2016. But in Australia the Japanese luxury brand found just 807 homes last year.

Nevertheless, Krueger said: "I think it's a good market for us" and was adamant there are no plans to terminate the brand in Australia.

"No. We're expanding," he said after peeling the covers of Infiniti's facelifted Q50 and the Q60 Black S concept car, the company's latest high-performance vehicle concept.

"We arrived there a few years ago and we're expanding the dealer network and the product line-up."

Addressing one of the biggest issues for the brand Down under — the lack of showroom representation — Infiniti now is now represented in all states and territories except Tasmania and the Northern Territory, with a total of nine dealerships nationally.

It's understood that the brand is about to announce more Australian dealerships in the coming months and, along with the facelifted Q50 and the potential of a hot hatch to draw new buyers into showrooms, Infiniti's fortunes can only improve Down Under.