Infiniti Prototype 9 has a Nissan Leaf motor in a racing body
The Infiniti Prototype 9 from Nissan’s luxury automotive subsidiary has used the 2018 Nissan Leaf electric motor under a high-end racing car exterior. The 148 hp vehicle is powered by a 30 kWh battery and has a top speed of 106 mph and a 0-60 mph time of 5.5 seconds. The vehicle’s style is distinctly 1930s-1940s in a bid to evoke the look of historical racing cars. The Infiniti Prototype 9 does not yet have a release date.
Infiniti is far from the first luxury automotive brand to show off an electric car concept in the wake of fending off Tesla and other startups, but Nissan’s upscale division has taken the 2018 Leaf’s heart and run in a very different direction.

This is the Infiniti Prototype 9, a design concept due to be shown this week at the 2017 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance near Monterey, California. But under the vintage-looking clothes of the Prototype 9, lies the powertrain from the 2018 Nissan Leaf.

Spend all your charge on a racetrack and Infiniti says the Prototype 9 should last up to 20 minutes

A 148-horsepower electric motor, with 236 pound-feet of torque, and a 30kWh battery, powers the rear wheels through a single-speed transmission, according to Infiniti. Interestingly enough, that sounds a lot like the electric motor that’s set to power the front wheels of the new Leaf, based on vehicle specifications that were leaked last week. Therefore in this Infiniti design project, it’s billed as a “next-generation EV powertrain.”

Still, its performance may bode well for the upcoming Nissan Leaf. Infiniti says the Prototype 9 has a top speed of 106 mph, with a 0–62 time of 5.5 seconds. Spend all your charge on a racetrack and Infiniti says the Prototype 9 should last up to 20 minutes (without actually giving a number of miles it might last).

The Infiniti Prototype 9 is packing Nissan’s newest EV technology under a striking body, mixing old and new. But why does it look like a 1940s racecar? After all, Infiniti doesn’t have a mid-20th century racing history because it was a brand created in 1989.

The technology underneath is destined for a Nissan dealership very soon

Alfonso Albaisa, Infiniti’s senior vice president of global design, says the Prototype 9’s look was inspired by the fantasy of “‘chancing' upon an unrecognized race car, hidden away for decades in a barn, deep in the Japanese countryside.” Therefore, it bears a heavy resemblance to the German and Italian racecars from the 1930s and ‘40s, even if Infiniti’s designers in Japan tried to infuse cues from the brand’s production cars in the front and sides.