The 2027 Infiniti QX80 Grew Its Grille From a Kyoto Bamboo Grove

Infiniti's design chief grew up among Kyoto's bamboo. Now the stalks, the water and the four seasons run from the nose of the flagship SUV to the third row.

Most car grilles are inspired by other cars. The one on the 2027 Infiniti QX80 comes from a forest. Specifically, the bamboo groves of Kyoto, where segmented stalks stand in tight ranks and light drops through the canopy. It’s a fitting source for a flagship SUV, because the man who leads Infiniti design grew up walking among them.

“I grew up in Kyoto, where bamboo forests are a familiar part of the landscape,” says Taisuke Nakamura, Head of Infiniti Design. “They give you a sense of peace through the graceful power of nature.” His team in Atsugi, near Yokohama, shaped most of the QX80 with input from colleagues around the world. Designers in the U.S. led the interior. The brief was Infiniti’s visual language, Artistry in Motion, and the bamboo is the clearest sign of it. The full story, as Design Milk reports, is a good deal more detailed than a mood board.

Stalks, water, light

On the nose, the designers boiled the strength and slenderness of bamboo down to a geometric pattern. It sits inside the QX80’s double-arch grille as a cubic motif. The same pattern repeats in digital piano key lights on either side, and the whole arrangement pulls your eye toward the illuminated emblem in the middle. That emblem is three-dimensional and meant to evoke a road running on without end.

The profile is quieter. A long, nearly flat hood meets taut shoulder lines. Sculpted fenders push the wheels out to the corners. Two character lines taper toward the rear. Flush door handles and a rear wiper hidden under the spoiler keep the body free of interruptions, and the handles also work with air curtains in the front bumper to steer air around the car.

At the back, Nakamura swapped the forest for a pond. “Light reflecting on water is always changing, but it feels very calm,” he says. “We wanted to capture that feeling across the full width of the rear.” The result is a lamp of more than 300 LEDs, running in a gentle curve from side to side. Its layered segments pick up the rhythm of the grille, so the car reads as one idea from end to end. The lamp also takes part in the welcome sequence when the QX80 unlocks.

A cabin that pays attention

Inside, the theme moves from nature to touch. “Craftsmanship is something you feel before you can explain it,” Nakamura says. “You touch a surface, or you see how light falls on a material, and you understand that someone cared about it.”

The top Autograph grade puts that into leather. The semi-aniline upholstery covers all three rows and has dot quilting, with stitching partly completed by hand. That means the third row gets the same treatment as the front seats, which is not a given in this class. “It gives the seat a warmth that a machine finish alone cannot,” he adds. The trim is open-pore ash with laser-cut inlays, pairing natural grain with modern precision.

The Sport grade gets a new interior scheme for 2027. It’s graphite, chosen because it makes “a very clean, modern base, so the open-pore wood-grain trim and matte chrome accents really stand out,” in Nakamura’s words.

Then there are the seasons. Optional ambient lighting works through a palette taken from Japan’s four: soft spring hues, deep summer green, warm autumn tones and a clear winter glow. Light pipes run through the dashboard and doors along the horizontal lines of the cabin, and the color shifts across the interior. “It is a simple way to bring the feeling of nature inside the vehicle,” he says.

Hospitality, with massage

The cabin also follows omotenashi, the Japanese tradition of anticipatory hospitality. In practice that starts outside, where Infiniti Light Path illumination greets the driver on approach. It continues in the upper trims. Sport adds massaging front seats and Biometric Cooling, which sends air to second-row passengers. Autograph extends massage to the second row and adds heated third-row seats and a chilled console box.

Both upper grades carry a 24-speaker Klipsch Reference Premiere system, with four of the speakers built into the roof. Individual Audio can send calls and navigation prompts to the driver’s seat alone, so the rest of the cabin keeps listening to whatever it was listening to. Dual 14.3-inch displays bring Google Maps, voice assistance and other connected services into the dashboard.

Nakamura sums up the split personality neatly. “QX80 has a strong presence from the outside, but inside, we wanted people to feel relaxed and taken care of.”

The 2027 QX80 is available now at Infiniti dealerships, starting at $85,500.

Via Design Milk