A recent post by stamar made me think a little bit. Not sure what it was, maybe just the way he chose to phrase things.

Since the i30 is essentially a high-end dressed up Maxima... Has anyone (probably someone with the parts, car, and a little too much time on their hands) considered taking an early 2000's Sentra or Altima, swapping over some essential branded and/or luxury components like the steering wheel, seats, grille, dash clock, etc... and making what would amount to an i20 or i25 out of a fully-equipped Sentra or Altima? You'd have the features and percieved luxury of an Infiniti, but the fuel economy and possibly lower insurance rates of the more plebeian vehicle.

I did this years ago -- I was driving the hand-me-down 1984 Volkswagen Quantum. After a little junkyard cruising for logos, grille, and emblems, I had an Audi 4000. That was nothing but lazy brand-engineering on the manufacturer's part since every part down to the engine block had VW/AUDI printed on it.

Just my random thoughts.

 

At least in Europe Infiniti i30 has been available with vq20de. And it is called Nissan Maxima in Europe. Try this: http://www.mobile.de/home/index.html?lang=en

Search for Nissan Maxima and there'll be plenty of 2.0's for sale. Not going to be cheap ship a car from Germany to US but anyways..

 

the seat rails are not plug and play.

with fabrication you can put any seat in any car though.

You can put bentley seats in your kia rio.

has any american car been made with a vq20de? I gotta believe thats a tough vehicle to find.

a lot of nissan owners take the auto dimming mirror from the i30 because its plug and play...

the rear seat wouldnt really fit in any other car. What I think is weird is the maxima is more part compatible interior wise with the pathfinder or truck. Im pretty sure you can put the seats in a d22 frontier or pathfinder.

bose stereo can be put in any car.... front seats. Ok so.... my 'INFINITI" leather seats are "branded" with infiniti stamped. Id MUCH rather hunt down a leather stamp and stamp some sentra leather seats than fabricate a way to put these in a sentra.

I think about it too because there has never been a REAL infiniti integra, which would be based on the sentra.

There wasnt a lexus corrola either though. The luxury econmy car its mostly like you say its an audi or a acura integra.

the g20 is based on the nissan primera, which is the euro model altima. Its kind of between the us sentra and altima.

There should have been a infiniti coupe that was based on the 200sx with the sr20de. Same motor nicer paint and


leather

they put the sr20de in the top spec sentra to this very day. its a design over 20 years old but its great.

 

Im not sure about it but I do believe nissans are in general very seat trade unfriendly.

Not like hondas. If theres a chart anywhere on the internet showing the compatibility please let me know I am always curious.

Certain parts are definitely cross compatible especially with the altima and maxima but not the seats. The steering wheel is compatible among almost all nissans though.

they are friendly enough that a newer altima works with an older altima and thats about it.


ps also the g20 was a was like a better luxury altima so you wouldnt need that one. your sentra the i20, thats something that would be really cool. All the performance of the sentra se-r and leather.

 

take a 3.5 and 3.0 and do a vq33 hybrid.