It seems like no time at all since the LS400 saloon made waves by being quieter, roomier and whole lot more reliable than traditional European prestige brands, but it's actually more than three decades ago. During that time other Japanese brands have had a go at launching a luxury brand in Europe. Mazda's Xedos range imploded after the interesting Xedos 6 was followed by the dull Xedos 9.
When a facelift failed to improve things, Mazda pulled the plug in 2000 after just eight years. Nissan bravely launched Infiniti here in the wake of the financial crisis. At the time it had a handful of dealers and drivers were employed to collect customer cars and drive them to the nearest service centre for routine maintenance.
But if you lived in a remote part of Scotland the distance to the dealer was so great they may as well have turned around and driven straight back for another service by the time they arrived on your doorstep. Filling the tyres with nitrogen, instead of the free air you can get at any service station, probably didn't help, either. Infiniti stuck it out and even signed a deal with Mercedes to re-badge a small(ish) SUV and call it the QX30.
The idea was that a small luxo car was exactly what us Europeans wanted. But by the time the QX30 arrived in 2015 the die was already cast. Between 2008 and 2020 (when the axe fell) Infiniti sold approximately 1,000 cars a year in the UK.
That's fewer than Bentley, or about the same number of 3-Series saloon BMW sold per week in 20.
