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UPDATE: New Infiniti Q30 Reveals Itself in First Official Photo

This is it - the new Infiniti Q30 shows its Mazda3-inspired styling cues way ahead of its official debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September. Oh, is that a 2.2 d badge glued to the front fenders? Affirmative, but why exactly 2.2 liters?
2016 Infiniti Q30 1 photo
Photo: Infiniti via Terranismo
To be manufactured at the Nissan’s Sunderland production complex, the Q30 and more rugged QX30 are firsts for the Japanese automaker. Infiniti never offered a premium C-segment hatchback/compact crossover, but the Q brothers will change that soon enough. And good golly, underneath that beautiful body lies Mercedes know-how. Plenty of it.

The core idea is that Infiniti approached the Germans and asked them “Hey, could you develop the underpinnings of our future compact cars?” Mercedes-Benz replied with a smirk “Sure, are the A-Class and GLA-Class good enough as a starting point?” And the rest is history in the making. Yes, boys and girls, this is a mildly modified MFA vehicle platform made to Infiniti’s measure, and that’s a-OK with us.

We won’t beat around the bush with the styling. But if you insist, we could encapsulate it in two words: sophisticated and outlandish. Everything from the stiff upper lip-like front fascia to the muscular side profile fits like a jigsaw falling into place, albeit we can see some Mazda here and there. Is it better looking than the A-Class/GLA-Class? Opinions are divided, but we wouldn’t call the 2016 Infiniti Q30 ugly.

About that 2.2 d badge, word on the streets and common sense hint toward engines and transmissions we can also enjoy on the German duo. From the A 160 d all the way to the A 250 Sport 4Matic, we expect the all-new Infiniti Q30 and its soft-road counterpart to be animated by Mercedes (and Renault-Nissan) engines varying from 1.5 to 2.2 liters.

UPDATE: press release added.
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press release
About the author: Mircea Panait
Mircea Panait profile photo

After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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