iNFINITI PROTOTYPE 9 CONCEPT
Japanese manufacturers lost out on a lot of the great motorsport history from the 1920's, 30's and 40's that most European manufacturers can bank on. So what do you do when you want to add some 40's motorsport jazz to your design portfolio? You design an open-wheel, retro-themed electric sports car that seamlessly blends the early days of the internal combustion engine with what is about to replace it.
Called the Prototype 9, Infiniti's open wheel, open top electric sports car was debuted at the 2017 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance and is supposed to showcase that even a mass market manufacturing giant like Nissan/Infiniti can display astounding levels of craftsmanship.
The Prototype 9 is definitely a thing of beauty - every panel on the car is hand-beaten by a team of Nissan's master craftsmen called Takumi, who spent countless hours shaping the body using old techniques.
This blend of old and new is what makes the Prototype 9 very interesting - most petrolheads decry the future of motoring and say it'll be ruined if the future is indeed electric. It'd be interesting to see if the 9 sways their opinion on what an electric car could be - not necessarily from the future, but a blend of the classic and the new.
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