2015 Infiniti QX80 Premium Review: Infiniti’s Luxurious ‘Brick With Eyes’
The skinny: Big, it’s huge; balls, they’re immense, and presence? Like a rhino in an innercity shopping centre. Yes, the new Infiniti QX80 Premium is certainly confronting, and, equally certain, it’s not for everyone.
But you wouldn’t be so shallow as to dismiss it on confronting style alone, would you? Because, if you did, you would be sorely underestimating this immensely strong, luxurious and comfortable heavy-duty 4X4 eight-seat SUV.
Vehicle style: Large Premium 4X4 SUV
Price: $110,900 (plus on-road costs)
Engine/transmission: 5.6 litre alloy petrol V8/7-spd automatic (with adaptive shift control)
Power/torque: 298kW/560Nm
Fuel consumption: (claimed) 14.8 l/100km; (tested) 18.1 l/100km
OVERVIEW
Clive James once described Arnold Schwarzenegger as a “condom stuffed with walnuts”. True, the ex-governator’s absurdly sculpted physique was a parody of a body – inflated muscle and sinew, and bumps where bumps shouldn’t aughta be.
This is the new Infiniti QX80 Premium. Absolutely non-conformist, its lumps and bumps and rudely robust lines command attention in every way.
Rhino-esque, a brick with eyes, the QX80 is the methuselah of SUVs.
But it is also more. Because underneath those confronting lines is an immensely powerful petrol 5.6 litre V8 engine and an immensely capable heavy-duty 4X4 drivetrain (shared with the V8 Patrol)
We drove it up through the guts of Tasmania, on gravel and tarmac to the highland lakes then back down to Launceston.