Infiniti Q50 Eau Rouge would get over 500bhp

The Infiniti Q50 Eau Rouge – an F1 inspired take on Infiniti’s Q – has been revealed and would get more than 500 bhp if it made production.

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The Infiniti Q50 Eau Rouge Concept was actually revealed in photos by Infiniti 10 days ago, but now it’s had a proper Detroit reveal and, although just a concept, it offers promise.

Yes, the Q50 Eau Rouge is about Infiniti cashing some of the kudos they get from sponsoring Red Bull, so we get lots about the Q50 being inspired by F1, F 1 flappy paddles, F1 aerodynamics…

But the fact is that the Q50 Eau Rouge does look promising and Infiniti has made a decent fist of adding go faster bits and bobs – including carbon fibre, inside and out – without making the Q50 look silly.

But what’s most interesting is that the Q50 Eau Rouge perhaps has the potential to tackle cars like the Mercedes E63 and the BMW M5 if, and it’s still an if, it goes in to production.

Johan de Nysschen, President of Infiniti, said of the Q50 Eau Rouge:

If we built this car I would expect it to feature over 500hp and 600lb/ft of torque. Through our various alliance partners we have access to a range of engines featuring this performance capability which, with a fair amount of engineering effort, can be developed to exhibit Infiniti character and accommodated within the Q50 engine bay. The engine we are evaluating for the Q50 Eau Rouge is a big personality, V-cylinder engine with forced induction.

I think our engineers have been waiting for a project like this.

It adds up to a potential statement fo intent that Infiniti are planning to produce a range of cars to take on BMW M, Mercedes AMG, Jaguar R and Lexus F.

We just don’t know when.