The Fuga is a full-size sedan, rear wheel drive with optional all wheel drive, produced by Nissan of Japan since October 2004 and now in its second generation. It is built on a wider, stretched wheelbase version of the Nissan FM platform. After the Nissan Cima and Nissan President were discontinued in August 2010, the Fuga became Nissan's flagship vehicle. In North America and Europe, the Fuga is sold as the second and third-generation Infiniti M, where it has been the flagship of the Infiniti luxury division of Nissan since 2006.First shown as the Fuga Concept at the 2003 Tokyo Motor Show, the Fuga is a replacement for the long running Nissan Cedric and Nissan Gloria series of cars. The name of the vehicle was inspired by the fugue, a composition musical form. The name Fuga was chosen to suggest that the long, storied histories of the Cedric, Gloria, Cima, and President are being combined into a new vehicle that continues to provide the prestige and heritage of those vehicles. The last model code for the Cedric and Gloria was Y34, and the last model code for the Cima was F50, with the President as PGF50. Two versions of the smaller Y34 (Cedric & Gloria) and the larger F50 (Cima & President) platforms were offered due to Nissan's dual sales channels in Japan, called (Japanese: Nissan Blue Stage) and (Japanese: Nissan Red Stage) , where Blue Stage sold traditional Nissan products and Red Stage sold former Prince products like the Nissan Skyline, the Gloria, the Nissan Laurel and the Nissan Auster.
When the Prince (Nissan) Gloria was first introduced in 1959, it was based on a stretched version of the original Prince (Nissan) Skyline, which was first introduced in 1957. Nissan used this approach again for the Fuga, using the Skyline platform again.
Nissan wanted to create a fresh approach started by the Cedric/Gloria and focus its efforts to compete with European executive mid-sized sports sedans, such as the BMW 5 series, Audi A6, Mercedes-Benz E-Class and Jaguar S-Type. The Fuga's primary competitor from Toyota is the Toyota Crown Athlete Series, but also competes with the Lexus GS.
The Fuga trim levels began with "XV" and ended with "GT" as the top trim package, equivalent to the previous "Brougham" and "Gran Turismo" versions of the Cedric and Gloria.
In markets outside Japan it is sold as the second-generation Infiniti M (M35/45). The Infiniti M became the flagship of the Infiniti luxury division after the 2006 model year, as the Infiniti Q (the Cima's counterpart in certain markets) was discontinued. However the Cima would remain in production for the Japanese domestic market and it is 2" longer than the Fuga which slots below it in the lineup.
