Yahoo Autos Nissan Skyline, Japan's Infiniti Q50, Updated with Outdated Styling
The Nissan Skyline, the Infiniti Q50 sedan for the Japan market, has received a facelift with some old styling cues.
But it also gets Nissan's ProPilot 2.0 suite of Level 3 semi-autonomous driving features.
In Japan, the Skyline is available as a hybrid or with a twin-turbo V-6.
The Infiniti brand isn't sold in Japan. Instead, Nissan sells a number of those models in its home market under different names. The Infiniti Q50 is badged in Japan as a Skyline—and it has been that way since the first G35 came out; the current model has even used the Infiniti logo. Up until this week, that is, as Nissan has now facelifted the Japan-only Skyline with some old styling and given it back the Nissan logo.
We say "old" styling because, well, it is. The Skyline's large V-Motion grille looks like the one on the current R35 GT-R and a number of older Nissan models that have since started migrating to the brand's newer design language. It's a bit odd to us that Nissan waited this long to graft Nissan-specific styling onto the Skyline, especially since it isn't fresh. There also are new taillights that have four round LED elements to tie the car to Skylines of yore.
Even bigger news than the bigger grille is the debut of the ProPilot 2.0 suite of Level 3 semi-autonomous driving features, which was detailed earlier this year. It'll be standard on all hybrid Skylines. The system will allow hands-free driving in certain situations, such as when the car is driving on a single lane and a route has been plugged in to the navigation. A driver-monitoring system makes sure the driver is paying attention. The front-facing sensors are integrated behind the Nissan logo in the new grille.
In addition to the ProPilot 2.0 tech, the Skyline gets a new engine that already exists in the U.S. Q50: the twin-turbo 3.0-liter V-6. Like in the U.S., it comes in multiple states of tune, with the top-end 400R model matching the 400-hp Red Sport Q50 that we get and lower-end Skylines making 300 horsepower. There are also new adaptive dampers and retuned adaptive steering, as well as some fresh tech features including a head-up display, over-the-air software updates, and wi-fi connectivity.
('You Might Also Like',)
