Luxury coupes don't get much more fetching than the Infiniti Q60. And that's a tribute to a design that's still hitting those high notes well into its ninth model year. But no car can get by on looks alone, and in this case, it doesn't hurt that the Q60 is a direct 2+2 cousin of the Nissan Z car, sharing the same vehicle platform, powertrain, steering, suspension, brakes, as well as body structure.
For 2022, the Infiniti Q60 carries over mostly unchanged from recent model years with minor updates to the exterior and interior color choices. It's available in basic Pure, nicely equipped Luxe, and red-blooded Red Sport 400 trim levels, each with a choice of rear- or all-wheel drive (AWD). The 2022 Q60 upgrades to wireless Apple CarPlay but continues with wired Android Auto smartphone mirroring.
Photo: Ron Sessions
The Infiniti Q60 competes in the Compact Premium Car market segment. According to data collected from verified new-vehicle buyers for the JD Power 2021 Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study, 65 percent of new Compact Premium Car buyers are male (vs. 61 percent for the industry as a whole). The median age of a new Compact Premium Car buyer is 56 years (vs. 57).
As part of the APEAL Study, owners rated the Compact Premium Car segment in 10 primary categories. Listed below in descending order, you'll find their preferences from their most favorite thing about the vehicle to their least favorite:
In the sections that follow, our independent expert analyzes a Q60 Red Sport 400 AWD equipped with the following options:
The test vehicle's price came to $66,490, including the $1,025 destination charge.
Photo: Ron Sessions
Alighting on one of the Q60's front seats checks two boxes: the personal luxury one and the sporty one. Although its origins date back at least to when Infiniti renamed the G37 Coupe the Q60 for the 2014 year, the coupe's dual-cowl dash that flows uninterrupted into the doors and center console has aged well. Clear and sharp, the white-on-black fine-vision analog gauges are elegant in their simplicity. The leather-wrapped steering wheel is grippy with just the right thickness, heated in all but the base Pure trim, and power-operated with two-person memory settings and an entry/exit assist feature in the Red Sport 400.
According to Infiniti, the power-adjustable front bucket seats utilize a spinal-support seatback design to minimize back fatigue. Covered in faux leather in the base Pure trim, the seats upgrade to creamy-soft semi-aniline leather, heated front cushions, and a driver's seat with power side bolsters for higher trims. There are no hard edges. All touchpoints are either soft to the touch, or as the padded sides of the center console and door armrests, easy on the knees. Sliding behind the wheel of the Q60 feels like you've just slipped into a well-tailored suit. All switchgear, from the shifter to the turn-signal stalk, feels substantial and logically arrayed.
Dual-zone automatic climate control is standard, with an advanced system using Plasmacluster auto-recirculation tech and a Polyphenol filter in the Red Sport 400. The test car had one of those, proving its worth during a desert dust storm. And for those romantics out there, a power tilt/slide tinted moonroof is standard with the Luxe and Red Sport 400 trims.
Console storage, however, is a bit on the short side. There's a small, covered, phone-sized bin ahead of the shifter, a pair of decently sized cupholders, and another covered, larger bin under the center armrest. The doors have some bottle storage.
The two rear seats are highly contoured and set deep into the floor. They're for kids (Infiniti includes a pair of LATCH anchors and tethers for safety seats), pets (suitably restrained), and shopping trip hauls, but not suited to regular adult use due to the squeeze getting in and out and the lack of knee space.
Photo: Ron Sessions
There are not one but two high-definition display screens for accessing infotainment content in the Q60. The upper touchscreen is an 8-inch LCD/VGA display for navigation and the reversing camera. The lower unit, meanwhile, measures 7 inches diagonally and handles phone, audio, and system settings, as well as some climate and seat-control functions. While the dual-screen setup looks dated compared to newer designs with a single, larger free-standing tablet-like layout, the Q60's dual screens give the driver the ability to monitor, say, navigation and audio content simultaneously at full-screen size instead of having to view both functions at a smaller size on a split screen. Both screens are within easy reach of the driver and front passenger.
Elements of the Infiniti InTouch system include:
The lower display has good-sized on-screen tiles that are easy to read and operate with the car in motion. Underneath it are hard buttons for changing between audio and climate-control functions, as well as an analog rotary volume knob and buttons for station seek, tuning, and media access. More hard buttons for the standard dual-zone automatic climate control flank both sides of the screen. Yes, there are a lot of buttons, but the vintage layout does mean less time scrolling through distracting screen menus.
Additionally, a console-mounted remote-control wheel provides system access to the navigation map, reversing camera, and voice commands.
Luxe and Red Sport 400 trims upgrade the base 6-speaker AM/FM/CD stereo to a rich-sounding 13-speaker Bose Performance Series premium audio system with Centerpoint simulated surround sound. It, too, has a CD player. Also included with the Red Sport 400:
The Q60 is not available with a wireless phone charger.
Photo: Ron Sessions
Packed neatly into the engine bay of the Q60 is a version of the same twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter V6 that powers the 2023 Nissan Z sports car. In the Q60's base Pure and mid-level Luxe trims, Infiniti tuned the biturbo V6 to develop 300 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque. Mated to a quick-shifting 7-speed automatic transmission with rev-matching downshifts, the result is zero-to-60-mph runs in the mid-5-second range. Courtesy of higher turbo boost pressure and intercooler capacity, the Red Sport 400 ups the ante to 400 hp and 350 pound-feet of twist, the same as the new Nissan Z car. The increased horsepower and torque, as well as shorter final-drive gearing in the Red Sport 400, also shorten its dash from rest to 60 mph to the mid-4-second neighborhood. Throttle response is crisp with both turbo V6 iterations, with maximum torque available over a broad range from 1500-1600 rpm up to 5200 rpm for easy freeway merging and overtaking slower vehicles.
The twin-turbo V6 gives the Q60 performance in keeping with its athletic handling and sporty looks. The hearty sound from the Q60's dual exhaust at full throttle is enticing as well, quieting down when cruising like a proper offering from a luxury brand should.
The Atessa ET-S Intelligent AWD system available with all Q60 trims—even the Red Sport 400—gives the coupe all-weather capability lacking in some other sport coupes. That's an important consideration if the Q60 will reside in a Northern climate. Atessa ET-S is an on-demand system that sends 100 percent of drive torque to the rear wheels during most driving situations with good traction. If the rears start slipping, the system can direct up to 50 percent of the drive torque to the front wheels.
The Red Sport 400 is the top Q60 performance choice. It brings another 100 hp and shorter gearing, in addition to quicker steering, larger vented 4-wheel disc brakes, twice as many brake-caliper pistons, and larger (20-inch vs. standard 19s) wheels wrapped with meatier low-aspect-ratio tires. Also standard on the Red Sport 400 are adaptive shocks that adjust damping in real-time for firm ride control without undue impact harshness. As a result, the Q60 Red Sport 400 keeps its composure regardless of the road surface. It also corners with minimal lean, steers precisely, and offers confidence-inspiring braking from any speed.
Optional with the Red Sport 400 is Infiniti's Direct Adaptive Steering. The opposite of what one might expect from a steering system dubbed "direct," the system has no mechanical connection between the steering wheel and steering gear. Nevertheless, Infiniti developed this "steer-by-wire" system to feel quite natural, even though it doesn't offer the road surface feedback of a mechanical system. Infiniti also configured it with a quicker ratio in the driver-selectable Sport mode than in Normal mode.
Photo: Ron Sessions
Despite its contemporary looks, the Q60 is one of the oldest models in Infiniti's lineup, dating back to 2014 with minimal changes. In addition to six airbags and a reversing camera, standard advanced driving assistance systems in the base Pure trim are limited to:
Upgrading to the Q60 Luxe or Red Sport 400 trims adds:
The top Red Sport 400 is also available with an optional ProActive package that, in addition to direct adaptive steering, includes:
The Q60 is not available with a head-up display, an ultrasonic rear parking-assist system, or the company's semi-autonomous ProPilot Assist system.
As a swoopy coupe with a plunging roofline, tiny rear window, and sharply angled rear roof pillars, the Q60 would benefit from making the blind-spot warning, backup collision automatic braking, and surround-view camera standard with all trims, not just the more expensive Luxe and Red Sport 400. Also, due to the limited rear visibility inside the cabin, rear parking assist with ultrasonic sensors that sound an increasingly more intense warning beep as the Q60's rear bumper gets closer to an object should be standard across the board.
Photo: Ron Sessions
The Q60's trunk offers 8.7 cubic feet of cargo space, which is typical for this class of luxury coupes. It can handle three or four airport roller bags. The rear seat does not fold down to enable a pass-through space for longer cargo from the rear of the cabin into the trunk. According to Infiniti, this is due to structural bracing behind the rear seat that improves the Q60's body stiffness and handling response.
Despite the sizable difference in output between the 300-hp 3.0-liter biturbo V6 powering Pure and Luxe versions and the 400-hp one under the hood of the Red Sport 400, the fuel efficiency of the two is nearly the same. The EPA rates rear-wheel-drive (RWD) Q60s at 19-20 mpg city/27-28 mpg highway. All-wheel-drive versions achieve slightly less at 19 mpg city/26-27 mpg highway. The Red Sport 400 AWD gets a 21-mpg combined rating; all other Q60 configurations achieve 22 mpg combined. I saw an observed 19.7 mpg average on the car's trip computer after a week of driving around town and on rural 2-lane back roads, admittedly enjoying the twin-turbo rush of the Red Sport's 400 hp like a teenager on a Friday night. With the Q60's generously sized 20-gallon fuel tank, that would result in a driving range of nearly 400 miles.
Neither the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration nor the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has published crash-test ratings for the 2022 Infiniti Q60 coupe. However, the IIHS has tested the structurally similar Infiniti Q50 4-door sedan and given it Good scores for moderate-offset frontal impacts, side impacts, roof strength, head restraints, and seats.
The 2022 Q60 Coupe pricing ranges from $41,750 for the base Pure trim to $50,300 for the mid-level Luxe and $58,200 for the range-topping Red Sport 400. For a $2,000 upcharge, the buyer can replace the standard RWD with AWD. The destination charge is an additional $1,025.
In the JD Power 2022 Initial Quality Study (IQS), the Lexus IS ranks highest in the Compact Premium Car segment. The Genesis G70 and the BMW 4 Series are the next highest-ranked models.
In the 2021 APEAL Study, the BMW 4 Series ranks highest in the Compact Premium Car segment. The Lexus IS and the BMW 3 Series are the next highest-ranked models.
Other 2-door coupe competitors to the 2022 Q60 include the Audi A5, Lexus RC, and Mercedes-Benz C-Class.
Photo: Ron Sessions
Good-looking from any angle, the 2022 Infiniti Q60 defies the ages. It's quick enough, certainly agile, and is always a welcoming place to spend some personal time. Cars like these are getting harder to find—all the more reason to stash one away for a future drive.
Parent Nissan Motor Co. will probably replace the Q60 with a futuristic-looking personal luxury electric car in the next few years, perhaps sharing content with the new Nissan Ariya.
Ron Sessions is a seasoned vehicle evaluator with more than three decades of experience. He has penned hundreds of road tests for automotive and consumer websites, enthusiast magazines, newsletters, technical journals, and newspapers.
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