Rare Rides: The Very Exclusive 2018 Infiniti Q60 Red Sport 400 AWD Neiman Marcus Limited Edition
Today’s excessively titled Rare Ride is one of a select few Infiniti Q60s blessed with a unique set of colors and options, and sold via luxury department store Neiman Marcus.
Hope you like Metallic Mustard.
Those of you who have good memories will know today’s car is not the first Neiman Marcus special edition presented in this series. No, our first was a Lincoln Blackwood edited by the department store and sold to customers for the 2001 holidays as a 2002 model. The store has a long history of special edition cars including a very expensive Cadillac ELR, a subject which I’ve yet to find for sale somewhere.
From what I can tell, TTAC never reported on today’s Rare Ride. Introduced in the fall of 2016, the Neiman Marcus Q60 was limited to just 50 examples and presented in that year’s holiday catalog. Continuing the company’s pricy and exclusive holiday offering tradition first established in 1939, the Q60’s main selling point was its color scheme.
Exclusive Solar Metallic paint was paired with a Gallery White leather interior, for a sort of Seventies New Yorker St. Regis vibe (minus the vinyl). Ideally, the interior matched with one’s velvet jacket and white pant ensemble. Other visuals included standard luggage: an Officine Autodromo (normally they make watches) weekend bag in white leather, and an indoor car cover made of satin and cashmere branded by Neiman Marcus. All the additions were backed by a letter of authenticity which was almost assuredly lost immediately.
All examples were transformations of the top trim Q60, the Red Sport 400 AWD. Powered by the 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 shared with the Q50, Red Sport trims upped the power from the standard 300 horses to 400. I’ve driven a Q60 Red Sport (and the Q50 version was my first-ever review) and I can tell you they’re quite potent. Unfortunately, the electric drive-by-wire Direct Adaptive Steering was standard on that trim, and sort of ruined enthusiast driving.
The base price of a Red Sport 400 Q60 that year was $52,205, but customers paid $63,000 for the Neiman Marcus Limited Edition. While that sounds like a rip-off, the fully-optioned nature of the Neiman Marcus meant it was cheaper than if a customer had bought a fully-decked standard version from their local Infiniti dealer. As a feel-good bonus, Neiman Marcus donated $1,000 to their own Heart of Neiman Marcus arts foundation for every Q60 sold.
Today’s exclusive Q60 is for sale right now at Infiniti of Cincinnati. With 40,000 miles it’s priced at $39,900, and there’s no mention of its special edition nature in the listing. Its price does not seem inflated at all when compared to other same trim Q60s for sale.
[Images: Infiniti]
Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.
More by Corey Lewis
Comments
Join the conversation
Seems like a nice car, but I'd be frustrated with the listing photos if I were in the market; they're too small and lack interior perspectives. They're barely a step above using stock photography.
When I think Neiman Marcus edition car, it always reminds me of the first run of Audi TT’s. 100 or so I think, all nimbus grey with baseball interior.