With all of the financial trouble Nissan is going through, it can be easy to forget about its luxury brand Infiniti. Like the parent company, Infiniti is going through its own share of struggles due to insufficient products and sales.

Infiniti’s Vice President of the Americas Tiago Castro has a plan to help get the brand on track and was candid about his plans during a recent media event in Farmington Hills, Michigan hosted by the Automotive Press Association.

Red Sport coming back? Stay tuned…

A question that we were eager to ask Castro was whether the Red Sport badge would make its way back into the lineup? The Red Sport moniker was a scrapped performance series and while it made its debut on the Q50 and the Q60 Red Sport 400 models, it never really expanded beyond those two before it was quietly axed.

When asked if the return of the Red Sport badge could help the company reach out to more buyers, Castro neither confirmed nor denied its return. Instead, he pointed out the three concept vehicles Infiniti assembled at the event saying that they offer different directions for models like the QX80 and the soon to be produced QX65.

In our opinion, we could see the Red Sport label be repurposed as more of a style focused trim for most of its SUV models if it returns, with the QX65 and the QX80 being some potential early recipients. Time will tell if Infiniti is indeed considering the move, but a second exec did point out that this question has popped up at smaller town hall events it has held indicating it has some traction within the brand.

A hybrid SUV and a sport sedan are coming

Infiniti axed the slow-selling QX50 and the QX55 recently and it currently only has two models for sale (the full-size QX80 and the slightly smaller QX60.) Castor said that this was done on purpose and that the brand will focus on consistency moving forward with the brand only launching one new vehicle per year. This is a departure from rivals who often launch multiple projects in one model year but Castro wants each launch to be done really well and that means a slimmed down development schedule.

One of these models would be a new two-row hybrid SUV that will appear in 2028. While it will be based on the Nissan Rogue, Castro promised that it would be differentiated enough from its cousin for most buyers to not notice the familial DNA. The compact utility would get a version of Nissan’s e-Power hybrid technology but Castro did confirm the Nissan would launch the tech in the U.S. before the new model.

The second new model was also a surprise, a new sport sedan. The appearance of this new four-door would upend Infiniti’s plan to be an all utility focused brand and while Castro admitted that its sales volume would make it more of a halo model, it’s ability to lure in customers will please dealers who have long been begging for a stylish halo vehicle to put front and center in their showrooms.

“I do think rear-wheel drive, perhaps the manual transmission, lots of horsepower, ability to perform in curves, those are all things we’re looking at,” Castro explained. The exec also confirmed the unnamed sedan would likely be built outside of the United States, though which could leave it vulnerable to the effects of tariffs.

Aiming big in sales

Castro’s bold plans are attempting to give Infiniti the one thing it has truly lacked as of late, strong sales, with Castro wanting to see the brand hit 100,000 total sales by the year 2029 with that date being the 40th anniversary of the Infiniti brand itself.

Part of this sales plan could be the addition of new variants of existing models. While the aforementioend Red Sport moniker’s future is up in the air, Infiniti revealed two QX80 based concepts the Terrain Spec and the Track Spec. One or both of these in production form would help add some meat to QX80 sales but in a finding that is bucking the broader trend for off-road vehicles, 78% of Infiniti dealers want to see a production version of the Track Spec possibly hinting that they see a resurgence in the street performance market.

Skeptics who think Nissan won’t have the production capacity needed to hit this goal will have nothing to worry about. Nissan’s two U.S. facilities, one in Smyrna and one in Canton, Mississippi, have enough capacity for Infiniti to reach its 2029 goal, Castro said.