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Infiniti Q50 Eau Rouge previews future design | video


Infiniti will unwrap the Q50 Eau Rouge at Detroit motor show, but in the lead-up are trickling out images and details of the F1-inspired car -- based on the production Q50 mid-size sedan that will arrive here early this year -- but with only the roof and door profiles remaining from the donor in Eau Rouge form.

The designers tapped the Red Bull racing team for the Eau Rouge, which is bristling with carbon fibre panels on a resultantly lighter body, widened and slung lower on massive -- but also light -- 21-inch wheels.

The track-bred wardrobe influences include a carbon-fibre front splitter, side skirts, mirror caps and rear diffuser and spoiler, with Infiniti executive design director Alfonso Albaisa saying the focus was on aerodynamics and performance.

“From our shared passion for performance with Infiniti Red Bull Racing grew a collective desire to produce a vision of what a high-performance Infiniti Q50 could look like,” Albaisa says in the press statement.

“The design has a number of distinctive Formula One inspired touches.  In particular, the sculpted front wing assembly and the rear aerodynamic packaging take their cues from the RB9 race car."

Infiniti hasn't yet given any details of what's under the bonnet -- and what sort of figures it could clock up -- but we're expecting at the very least a revised version of one of the Q50's mills with some extra power and torque squeezed out.

With the Eau Rouge's performance focus, that's likely to be the hybrid system from the Q50 S flagship -- with some extra output above its 268kW/546Nm combined from a 3.5-litre V6 petrol engine and an electic motor -- rather than the 157kW/320Nm 2.0-litre petrol four, 245kW/365Nm 3.7-litre V6 or 125kW/400Nm 2.2-litre turbodiesel.

Infiniti is also making a strong social media play with the Eau Rouge, and we'll get to see more or less of the car depending on the amount of likes, tweets, shares and other responses, which will start forming an image of the car in a 'virtual garage'. The more responses, the more quickly the car will build and the more we'll see -- presumably circumventing the customary leaking of images.