jazzybarrel83: Report: The Emerg-E may not be the Halo Car that Infiniti is Seeking

There is no doubt that a fairly wide gap exists between Infiniti and its F1 sponsorship. Really, there is not a single production Infiniti that anyone can point to and say ?Ah, that is a car that relates to open-wheel performance racing.? Sure, there have been concepts and so forth, but nothing firm.

The halo car was once thought to be the upcoming Emerg-E hybrid, but signs are pointing that the Emerg-E may disappoint. Infiniti is planning to have a running prototype of the Emerg-E ready to go for Goodwood Festival of Speed and, according to several outside sources that Car and Driver has spoken to, this gas-electric hybrid may not be the performance car that everyone is expecting (sub-five-second 0 ? 60 time, 420 horsepower, etc.).

While that is really disappointing, as we were anticipating huge things from the Emerg-E, we cannot say that we are surprised. Infiniti has been really tight-lipped on this project, which oftentimes means that there are some issues going on. If the reports are accurate, then the tight lips have been due to the Emerg-E not being able to reach the power numbers that Infiniti estimated.

Don?t fret though, as Infiniti does have a fallback plan, in the form of the 2009 concept, the Essence. Yes, the Essence has been effectively shelved since its debut, but, according to reports, there are still talks about this 592-horsepower hybrid making its way into production in one form or another.

For now, all we have are unconfirmed reports from outside sources, so we will reserve our judgment for Goodwood. Who knows, the Emerg-E could come out and blow us away, and Infiniti may have kept it quiet just to avoid the competition, like Acura?s NSX and BMW?s i8, from knowing what Infiniti is planning.

Goodwood kicks off on June 28th, so we don?t have to wait too awful long to find out. We?ll update you just as soon as we hear more about this situation.