Infiniti Looks to Next QX80 With Monograph Concept

Infiniti pulls the wraps off its QX80 Monograph concept tonight ahead of tomorrow’s New York auto show press preview.

The QX80 Monograph, officially called a “design study” by Infiniti, hints at how the exterior of the Nissan luxury brand’s large SUV may evolve.

The concept “provides the opportunity to reimagine Infiniti’s signature design DNA on a totally different scale,” says Alfonso Albaisa, Nissan’s newly installed design chief and most recently senior vice president of Infiniti global design.

Horizontal lines, satin-copper skin, a wider and taller double-arch grille with abstract structural mesh and Infiniti’s signature human-eye headlamps are some of the design elements of the QX80 Monograph.

The concept SUV is shorter in length than the current production QX80 by roughly 12 ins. (310 mm), but Infiniti says it appears longer in part due to a “strong, straight shoulder line that runs from the grille all the way to the rear of the car.”

Lighting is stylized, with thin taillights, headlamps that wrap around front corners and light bars that extend to the leading edge of front doors, where rearview cameras are present.

Functional design features that cut down on drag include metallic vents before front and rear wheels, a gloss-black airfoil between twin exhausts, pop-out door handles and A-pillars flush to the side windows and windshield.

The structural mesh of the grille “adds greater visual depth with a series of individual sculptures that appear linked together in a lattice,” Infiniti says.

The D-pillar is reshaped to enhance the horizontality of the SUV’s upper body and wheels are 2-tone, partially chromium black and partially brushed copper. The wheels measure 24 ins. but due to an outer edge that overlaps tires they appear 26 ins., Infiniti says.

Although it hasn’t been redesigned since ’14, the Infiniti QX80 is a modest but strong seller for Infiniti in the U.S., with 2016 volume of 16,772, a 7.2% increase from 2015.

Sales in first-quarter 2017, up 32.1% to 5,355, helped Infiniti sales grow 33.4% this year, WardsAuto data shows.

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