One of the oldest and least successful models of Infiniti will get a new life this fall when it reaches an extended wheelbase.
The QX50 - an early participant in the segment of small-luxury-crossover when it debuted in 2007 - arrive in September with a wheelbase that is 3.2 inches elongated. Infiniti executives and US dealers think the change will improve vehicle sales.
The longest distance between axes produce head rotor 6.8 inches of extra leg room for the rear seat. The change transforms the back seat QX50 one that was too small even for children to one that is now more comfortable for passengers than 6 feet high.
"It was always conceived as the car of one wife," says Warren Zinn, president of Warren Henry Auto Group in Miami. "For any other purchaser, the design just did not work - the back seat was basically non-functional."
Now, he predicts, the QX50 was in the hot spot of the luxury market - small but spacious crossovers.
Randy Parker, vice president of Infiniti Americas, says the repackaging is so significant that the 2016 QX50 is essentially a new model.
"And we'll treat it as a new model," Parker said during a recent weekend at Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance here. "We are now working with the dealer body to marketing money available to treat it as a new model launch, and we're going to draw a lot of attention to the fact that it is something new now."
Originally marketed as the EX35, the model caught on sales, despite having this kind of technology as the first Around View Monitor, which uses sensors outside the body to create a screen console bird around the vehicle and obstacles during parking nearby.
The economic recession a year after the launch also wounded.
Last year, Infiniti sold 2,727 in the US QX50s During the first seven months of this year, it has sold 1,614, up 2 percent from the same period of 2014.
The introduction of a longer wheelbase of an existing model is not unusual. But is typically a move to attract a luxury nameplate to a buyer, particularly a buyer who intends to be a driver.
That is not the strategy for the small crossover Infiniti says Parker.
"The hottest segment of the premium at this point is that small SUV segment, and are virtually non-existent in it," he said. "We will be more prominent in it."
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