It’s getting close to the big opening day for the Detroit Auto Show and Infiniti wants the world to see what they’re going to bring ahead of time: The new QX50 Concept.

Billed as an evolution of the 2016 QX Sport Inspiration, which was introduced at last year’s Beijing Auto Show, the newest QX looks to be about a breath away from production. Considering how long in the tooth the current generation QX50 is, having been introduced ten years ago as the EX35, it’s not a stretch to imagine that this latest concept is indeed almost exactly what the new QX50 will be.

A bit bigger – Infiniti is now calling it a mid-size crossover – and significantly more current-looking than the car it is set to replace, the aggressive looking – for Infiniti – QX50 Concept takes the model definitively out of the “melted bar of soap draped over a station wagon body” camp and sets it firmly in the company of other CUVs out there. There’s no mistaking the intent of this body shape.

Pictures of the interior, said to be “driver-centric” and “passenger-minded”, are yet to be released.

Infiniti is also touting their latest move toward semi-autonomous driving, which they say focuses on driver engagement while acting more as, in their words, a “co-pilot”, assisting with the drudgeries of stop-and-go traffic and checking blind spots, leaving the driver to do other stuff apparently.

Also on exhibition will be what Infiniti is calling the world’s first production-ready variable compression ratio engine. Being able to change its compression from 8:1 to as high as 14:1 using a variable piston reach allows the engine to deliver performance and efficiency depending on the vehicle’s needs at the time. Infiniti is promising turbo gasoline engine power as well as the torque and efficiency of a diesel engine, all while providing almost 270 horsepower and a 27% improvement in fuel economy over standard V6 gasoline engines.

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