FX Fastback Reborn? | 2027 Infiniti QX65 Autograph | Detailed First Look

Nissan's luxury division Infiniti continues their aggressive product cadence and the story continues with the introduction of this vehicle. This is the first ever 2027 Infiniti QX65. The company essentially took their best-selling and very popular QX60 and made this thing more of a sportback or fastback SUV. It's designed to kind of evoke the original Infiniti FX and give the company a competitor to the Lexus RX. So today we're actually out here in beautiful Bel Air, California because we're getting a chance to see the all-new QX65. So now that we're doing so, let's go ahead and take a detailed first look. Now we've been waiting for Infiniti to give us a kind of reincarnation of the original FX because if you guys remember the FX was an iconic SUV. It was one of the first sporty SUVs to come out nearly 25 years ago. So before we start talking about the new design language for this QX65, let me go ahead and talk about what's going on underneath the hood. Now because this is built on the same architecture as the QX60, we have the same powertrain here. Although Infiniti claims that they've tuned the powertrain to be a little bit more responsive, to be a little bit sportier. It's the company's two-liter gasoline direct injection VC turbo. So it's got a variable compression turbocharger and it continues to make 268 horsepower, 286 pound-feet of torque. If you guys are keeping score, this powertrain is the same as the QX60, but compared to something like the Nissan Murano, which technically rides on a similar architecture, this offers nearly 30 more horsepower than that vehicle. It all goes out through a nine-speed automatic transmission and Infiniti's intelligent all-wheel drive system is going to be standard. So there's no front wheel drive version of this car like there is on the regular QX60. Now the company didn't talk about fuel economy ratings just yet, but the regular QX60 is rated at 22 in the city, 27 on the highway. I expect this car to be pretty similar. Thankfully, because it's built on the QX60 architecture, it still tows a maximum of 6,000 pounds, which is pretty impressive for the segment. It's nearly twice the towing capacity of some of its rivals. And of course, with that all-wheel drive system, I expect this car to have a zero-to-sixty time of under seven seconds, but we'll be able to drive this vehicle sometime in April. Now, in terms of the curb weight, Infiniti actually already announced that. This model, as it sits, will weigh in at around 4,700 pounds. So it weighs about the same as the QX60, and we'll talk about that when we go into the rest of the walkaround. Now, closing the hood, first of all, we have to talk about this color. Now, this color is called Sunfire Red. It's a beautiful new color exclusive to the QX65 for now. It kind of is supposed to remind you a little bit about a color called Regal Red that Nissan offered on the GT-R. And it's a beautiful deep red with a kind of gold-plated glass flake in the actual paint. So here in the California sunlight, you can see the actual beautiful metallic flake in the paint, and it flows beautifully with the company's artistry and motion design theme here. You can see it's got the double arch grille, which is uniquely designed on the Autograph trim. Infiniti will offer this in three different trims, the Base Lux, the Sport, which they expect to be the volume model, and this Autograph. You can see the grille has kind of like design cues that's supposed to remind you of like a bamboo forest with the big Infiniti logo that's illuminated. You have the same fascia that you find on the flagship QX80 with this kind of separate element for the piano key style LED daytime running lights. This is also the turn signal. You have a separate element for the LED low and high beams. As you can see, some fake vents over here with some functional vents. You can see there's also lots of gloss black with some integrated parking sensors and a full 360 camera is standard if you guys go for the Sport trims and up. But overall, you can really see the low and wide proportions of this vehicle. In fact, I think the QX80's front end grasps really well onto the front fascia of the QX65. Now, moving around to the side profile, you can see this vehicle has that fastback roofline. In fact, when you look at it from this angle, you can really see the original Infiniti FX in the design cues, especially with that, you know, sloping roof end or rear end. You can see the roof is also gloss black. You can get that gloss black roof on the Sport or this Autograph trim and it pairs beautifully with the Sunfire Red. You can see the beautiful metallic fleck in it. The wheels, as you can see, Infiniti offers a choice of a 20-inch wheel or a 21-inch alloy. You can see these are the bigger 21s. Technically, it's an inch smaller versus the QX65 Autograph that they showed last year at Pebble Beach, but the tire size is 265 by 45 R21. You have a 13.8-inch brake rotor at the front, a slightly smaller 13-inch at the back. The company did lower the suspension on this car. Now, it has a standard fixed suspension. They didn't mention if it had adaptive suspension or adaptive dampers, but you have just under six inches of ground clearance. So, it's around an inch lower than the QX60 and an overall length of 198.5. This vehicle is actually around 0.4 inches longer than the QX60. So, I was not expecting this vehicle to be a little bit longer than its three-row equivalent. They ride on the same 114.2-inch wheelbase compared to like a Lexus RX, which Infiniti bills as its main rival. This vehicle is roughly around eight inches or seven to eight inches longer, which is very impressive. It's going to give this car more interior space, which I think is what the client of this particular segment is going to be looking for. Now, as you come over to the rear, you can see that fastback roof kind of comes back and it really shows off a much sleeker design back here, especially compared to the QX60. The 65, as you can see, has a nicely built-in spoiler at the back. The rear wiper is also tucked in underneath that rear spoiler that houses the third brake light. I love the full LED light bar that kind of goes across the back with the black badging here. Infiniti, of course, is boldly spelled out. The taillights are full LED. All LED lighting is, of course, going to be standard. You have their black accented QX65 badge here. And then again, that Sunfire Red sparkles in this California sun with the gloss black for the rear lower bumper. You can see the tow package is already included. 6,000-pound towing capacity is massive. This is like 4,500 pounds more versus a Nissan Murano. So if you're considering a Murano, this has a much better towing capacity if you guys actually plan to tow. The one thing the vehicle is missing is any kind of exposed exhaust tip. In fact, it just has dual tips that are kind of poking out from underneath the rear bumper. I would have liked to see the company do like a chrome outlet exhaust. They did say, again, they tuned the engine and the transmission to be a lot more responsive and sportier for this particular model. Now, a power liftgate is going to be standard. Go for the autograph trim. You'll have a hands-free power liftgate. And as you can see, they loaded up the trunk with a bunch of stuff. And that's because even though it has that fastback roof design, Infiniti says this cargo capacity is generous at 35.8 cubic feet of storage space. That's roughly 8 to 10 more cubic feet versus some of the rivals that have, again, that sportback design. Fold down the back seat, it expands to 67.7 cubic feet of storage space. So nearly 68 cubic feet of space gives this vehicle around 15 to 20 more cubic feet versus a lot of its rivals. It's more than the Lexus RX. It's even more than a BMW X6, for example. So again, Infiniti didn't want to make too many compromises here. You still have that beautiful fastback design, but you still have a good amount of practicality when you look underneath the trunk. Now, moving on to the interior of the all-new Infiniti QX65. As you can see, I hope you guys like red because this color combination is pretty bold. You have that sunfire red on the outside and this vermilion semi-aniline leather interior on the inside. Now, this vermilion leather is new for the QX65. It's exclusive to the autograph trim. And as you can see, it's a beautiful-looking seat with the quilted leather that contrasts stitching and piping. These seats also adjust in 12 different ways. You have three-person memory on the driver's side, and they're also heated, ventilated, and massaging. So going with the autograph trim really increases the amount of luxury and just kind of like a very, you know, ambience, like that premium ambience that you expect from Infiniti as a brand. You also probably notice these interesting ears in the headrest, and that's because this model has the 20-speaker Klipsch Reference Premier personal audio system. So 20 speakers, 1200 watts of power. These speakers here are designed if you guys, you know, plan to take a phone call, they basically will play, you know, the person who you're talking to in those speakers so you don't disturb the rest of the passengers. We've tested something similar in the QX80, but overall, it certainly makes a great first impression. Now, stepping inside, with around six inches of ground clearance, you can feel it has a lower step-in height, which is still, you know, pretty easy to get in and out of as I shut the door. The door actually has a really solid-sounding bunk. Remember, this is built on the, I believe, the D platform, something that it shares with the Murano, with the QX60, of course. This is the key fob for the vehicle. This is Infiniti's newest Intelligent Access Fob. It's actually a really nice evolution of the previous design. It's a good size. It feels nice in your hands. It has lots of buttons here for remote start, lock, unlock, power liftgate, and then a panic function. I don't remember if Infiniti offers their phone as a key. They didn't talk about here at this, you know, very quick first look, but start-stop button is right here by the shifter. Put your foot on the brake, and the car, this is a production car, so you can hear the engine starts up, and it sounds pretty similar as the QX60, but at the same time, again, they've tuned the engine to be a little bit sportier, and it also feels like it's a little more free-revving. I actually really like the way the engine revs up. It's definitely a little bit sportier and more aggressive versus the last QX60 that I tested. Now, in terms of the rest of this interior, let's go ahead and talk about the door panels here. You can see the driver, or the door panel here on the front has this really nice soft-touch material where it's actually almost leather covered, which is great. You actually have leather on the top, and the lower portion, you have aluminum trim here for the door handles, and this beautiful black ash wood. That's exclusive to the Autograph trim, and of course, it flows nicely with the aluminum. The armrest area is also nice and padded. That Klipsch Audio, you can see, is branded there. It's showing off, you know, what, you know, who makes the audio system, and then the window controls are one touch up-down for all four. The controls and switches also feel high quality, but overall, it, you know, makes a great first impression. As I move over to the dash, you can see you have a head-up display on this model, which is included. You also have the same soft-touch injection molded here on the upper portion. More of that beautiful black ash wood, which you can actually see the graining material, and this beautiful leather here with the quilting. Feels really expensive. It looks really great. More of that leather here on the lower portion. I also appreciate how Infiniti is using a traditional air vent here instead of those digital vents you might see on something like the Lincoln Nautilus, for example. And then, if you guys go for the sport trims that up, you'll actually get a power tilt telescoping wheel. So, this wheel is definitely great for getting a nice comfortable driving position. A heated steering wheel is standard. You also have paddle shifters to control the 9-speed auto. Infiniti's adaptive cruise control lane keep assist is standard, but the autograph trim is available with a ProPilot 2.1. So, there's the camera that watches your face. This actually offers hands-off driving on certain highway roads. So, that's a feature that, again, is starting to pop up in a lot of competitors. But overall, you can see, in terms of tech, all of them come with the digital 12.3-inch gauge cluster, which pairs nicely with the head-up display. You can slightly customize the look of this head-up display or this gauge cluster as well. If you want to change the meter view, you can kind of go to a more simplified view there, where it gives you more, you know, looks for the trip computer, for your driver assist information. The center display here is the same 12.3-inch display that you get in the QX60. It has Google built-in. It has wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. And the graphics and resolution is also certainly much improved. You can see there's where you can find the massaging seat. There's three different types I personally like the refreshing massage. It has different intensities. That's exclusive, again, to the autograph trim. So, kind of keep that in mind. Push this button here, you can see there's your full 360 camera, which offers a top-down view. That 360 camera is standard when you guys go for the sport trims and up. It offers really amazing quality resolution. You have like a top-down 360 view where you can kind of do a perimeter scan. I believe the perimeter scan is only included on this trim here. And then there's also like a front wide view as well, along with this kind of view here, where you can see where the wheels are, if you don't want to curb your 21-inch wheel. So, overall, the software here is very impressive. Infiniti has been making some big strides here to improve that significantly. There's your tri-zone automatic climate control here with actual knobs, which I appreciate. There are some touch-sensitive buttons. You can see for the heated and cooled seats, there are touch-sensitive button, but they also provide haptic feedback, which is nice. Down here, you can see there's really nice leather stitching on this portion here, where you might bump your knees there. The shifter controls the 9-speed auto. And as you can see here, there's an all-new wireless phone charging pad that Infiniti has designed in-house. It actually has the MagSafe feature here, where your phone will magnetically connect to that when you place your phone there. And it also has a built-in cooling fan. So, that's really important because a lot of wireless chargers are absolute crap, and they overheat your phone. They don't always work. So, I'll be curious to see how that works in this car. Infiniti says they'll be putting it on all their 2027 model years moving forward. I like the aluminum trim here along this kind of area where you have decent-sized cup holders, of course. I like how there's not a lot of piano black plastic, which can get really scratched up and smudged up. There's also a pretty big storage area down here, which is nice for hiding a few items. Your two USB-C charge ports are located over here by the wireless phone charging pad. And you can see there's a nice little padded armrest, pretty decent-sized center console storage with a 12-volt power outlet. And then above me, you can see here the panoramic glass roof is standard equipment on all trims. It also opens up to vent air, along with having that retractable shade. So, this is a great feature to have. A lot competitors make you pay extra for it. I like how Infiniti doesn't make you pay extra. It's standard on all models. And then the autograph trim will include this digital camera rearview mirror, which is important. If you guys plan to put stuff to the roof, you can see exactly what's behind you. There's a nice little wood material for the headliner, along with LED lighting. And there's also interchangeable ambient lighting where you can change it, I believe, to 64 different colors. So, it really gives us all a more premium ambience. So, overall, if you guys like the interior of the QX60, this is pretty identical to, you know, in the QX65, aside from the unique color options, it has a nice, you know, commanding view of the road. Material quality feels solid. And I suspect this car also has that luxury feel that you get from the QX60. But let's go ahead and hop into the backseat area, and I can show you guys what that space is like. Now, getting back here, as you can see, I like the traditional door handle. Some competitors have gone to that pop-out style door handle. And this is where Infiniti was able to preserve, again, that rear seat roominess. Now, first of all, this backseat has the same beautiful quilted leather in that Vermilion red with the contrast stitching and piping. These seats are also heated. This trim is the only trim to give you the heated seats, but no ventilated seats back here. You can find that in some competitors. You also can notice here, the seats do have the ability to recline, or you can also slide it forward and back here, which is fantastic. If you want to fold the seats down, it creates almost a completely flat load floor, which is important if you guys want to utilize up to 68, nearly 68 cubic feet of storage space. But as I get back here, as you can see, Infiniti says you have just under 36 inches of leg room back here, which 36 inches doesn't sound like a lot on paper, but it feels a lot more spacious here in person. I'm 5'7". You can see, this is practically my driving position. I can easily stretch out, get comfortable. I can cross my legs. I'm also impressed that there's a flat floor back here, which is not something you typically find in a gas-powered vehicle, which is nice. You have your Tri-Zone climate control, like I said, back here with your three-level heated seats. There is a space here for a two USB-C charging ports, of course. And then if you're looking for your vents, the vents are located up here on the ceiling, which is nice. The material quality back here carries over from the front, so you have this really nice soft leather here on the upper door panel with more of that wood, the aluminum, nice padded leather, of course, where you'd rest your elbows. Down at the lower portion, it is hard-touch plastic, but there's also some additional storage, which is nice. And then once you're coming back in here, you can see you have the storage cubbies in each of the front seats. There's an armrest here with two cup holders that folds down. And then in terms of the headroom space, the height of this vehicle is similar to the QX60, and I have a solid maybe two, three inches of additional clearance at 5'7". So overall, there's really very little compromises here, which is not something you can say about some of its rivals that have more of that, you know, aggressively raked roofline. So it's impressive how Infiniti was able to give you all this interior space while also giving you that sportier design. So it's really great to see Infiniti making such big improvements and also adding the necessary models in their lineup, because I was worried about Infiniti as a brand. This car company has been around for nearly 40 years. 1989 is the first year it came out. And when the original FX came out back in 2003, it was an SUV that really got a lot of attention. It was one of the first sporty SUVs that you could buy in the segment, because remember that came out about a year before something like the Porsche Cayenne, for example. And it really shows that Infiniti is kind of leaning into their sportier design heritage. So after spending the day here, looking at the all new QX65, I have to say this is a better effort versus their first attempt at this, the QX55, which technically the QX55 will still be available, but this is a bigger midsize two-row SUV. And it's an important segment for Infiniti because if you guys look at the segment as a whole, the QX60, for example, is the company's bestseller. They did just over 30,000 units. And if they could at least capture half the sales in this vehicle, it's really going to help Infiniti become more profitable, give them bigger market share. But if you're interested in getting your hold of the QX65, they're heading to your local Infiniti dealerships sometime in the early part of this summer. And while the company wasn't ready to announce final pricing as of this filming, we'll have that information by the time this video goes live. They did say, however, that the base Lux trim, which comes with all-wheel drive, which comes with a power liftgate, remote start, the panoramic sunroof, dual zone climate control, heated seats, heated steering wheel, that's going to start at under $55,000, which is actually a lot less expensive versus what I was expecting. I was expecting this car to start at around $60,000 based on what the QX60 is. Because if you look at a QX60 today for a Lux trim with all-wheel drive, that's around $62,000. So Infiniti is pricing this car about $5,000 less than that vehicle. Now, of course, this is the fully loaded autograph trim. I expect this model to probably be closer to $65,000, maybe closer to $70,000. Who knows, Infiniti may surprise us because they've been packing in a lot of value, a lot of technology, a lot of luxury at a price tag that significantly undercuts a lot of its rivals. But while that's said, I hope you guys have enjoyed my very detailed overview on the brand new 2027 Infiniti QX65. If you're also looking to see the latest cars I'm testing, be sure to follow me on Instagram at Redline Underscore Reviews. Like us on Facebook. And as always, guys, please keep subscribing to the Redline Reviews YouTube channel for all the latest reviews. Thank you so much for watching. I'll catch you all in the next video.