Prototype 9 reveals why Hong Kong’s Infiniti fans are a bold and demanding bunch

The old marketing saying that “no prophet is accepted in his hometown” might apply to Infiniti in Hong Kong. Last month, the luxury marque launched the Prototype 9, a one-off “passion” project at Monterey Car Week’s closing event, the 2017 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.

The world’s motoring elite loved the one-seater’s design and its hidden marketing messages, but the response among Hongkongers seemed muted.

But that’s nothing new. Infiniti shocked much of the car world in 2012, when it established its global headquarters in Hong Kong with about 100 staff. Since then, its global hub in the Hopewell Centre, Wan Chai, has been a hive of international car marketing and start-up collaboration.

From Queen’s Road East, the marque monitors its growth in mainland China and another 50 export markets. The base also links with alliance members and the company’s design studio network in Atsugi-Shi (near Yokohama), London, San Diego and Beijing.

Yet despite this global reach, Infiniti’s cars often seem hard to find among rival European luxury models in either Central, or 17 floors up the marque’s circular headquarters building on the Mid-Levels “corniche” of Kennedy Road.

Marketers might debate whether Infiniti is running a “rare-but-posh” strategy in “Asia’s Capital of Cars”, or still suffers in the more parochial parts of Mid-Levels from being the premium arm of Nissan, maker of local taxis.