David Linklater.

New coupe has computercontrolled steering, but still puts lots of power to the back wheels. By

What I really want to say about the Infiniti Q60 coupe is that it doesn’t need a steering wheel. That you could steer it with a joystick, gesture control (sorry BMW) or even by voice command: ‘‘Hey Infiniti, go slightly left!’’.

The Q60 and its sedan-sibling the Q50 are the first production models in the world to have steerby-wire. There is no physical connection between the steering wheel and the front axles, so your steering inputs are communicated to an electric motor that turns the front wheels. Infiniti calls it Direct Adaptive Steering (DAS). Freaky, right?

What reason for this sorcery? Well, there are many. For a luxury vehicle (which this $115k coupe is), steer-by-wire prevents the texture of sub-par road surfaces being transmitted back through the wheel. For a sporty vehicle (which the Q60 also wants to be), steer-by-wire allows you multiple options for tailoring steering response.

Not to mention future-proofing for active-safety and autonomousdrive technology. The Q60 already has a full suite of active safety stuff, including lane-keep assist with automated steering.

It’s still freaky, which is why there’s a backup mechanical steering system that locks into place in the event of an electronic mishap. Reassuring but also a little disappointing, because it means the Q60 does indeed need a steering wheel.

About now you might have one of those knowing ‘‘all fine until it goes wrong’’ looks on your face. If that’s the case you’ll be stoked to know that DAS has indeed been recalled twice, on the Q50: once in 2014 for problems in freezing temperatures and again in 2016 for possible malfunction when the car is self-steering in automated adaptive cruise/lane-keeping mode (no recorded crashes).

This is all news to us, because Infiniti is a new brand for New Zealand. But Nissan’s luxury division has been around as long as Lexus (it was launched in 1989), even if it’s taken the brand a lot longer to see the merits of selling cars outside the United States.

It hasn’t been a smooth road by any means, but since 2012 Infiniti has been on an expansion programme: relocating head office from Japan to Hong Kong, focusing more on the lucrative SUV market but also developing niche models to bolster its premium-brand credentials. Hence a range-wide rebrand to ‘‘Q’’ (passenger cars) and ‘‘QX’’ (SUV) model names.

Last year Infiniti sold just 230,000 vehicles globally, about a third the volume of Lexus. So there’s a long way to go.

That’s relevant because take a quick look at the range and it seems Infiniti is very much Lexuslite: every model from the I-brand seems to have been created to go head-to-head with something from the L-badge.

If that’s the case (and I’d love to hear any argument that it isn’t) then the Q60 is the brand’s answer to the Lexus RC coupe. Good news: this car eats the RC for styling, value and sheer driving thrills.

The entry-level Q60, with a 2-litre turbo-four (and conventional steering), is over $20k cheaper than the RC 200t.

But it’s this Q60 3.0T Red Sport that’s really interesting, because it’s more than $10k cheaper than the RC 350 F Sport, serves up a lot more power (65kw more in fact) and is a lot more engaging to drive. I’d even argue it’s a potential rival for Lexus’s hero RC F: not nearly as specialised or track-focused, but less than a second slower to 100kmh and a lot more fun, despite being $53,400 cheaper.

There’s an urgent-yet-linear whoosh of power and torque from the 3-litre twin-turbo engine, and you’re never in any doubt that this is a rear-drive vehicle: it’s deliciously skiddy feeling in the dry, verging on a scary handful in the wet.

So avoid the fifth and most aggressive drive-mode, Sport+, when the rain comes down.

How much of this excitement and engagement is down to technology like the DAS and Digital Dynamic Suspension (DDS) is open to debate. The steering feels pretty weird to start with, because there’s something reassuring about feeling the texture of the road through the steering wheel – at least on Kiwi backroads where surfaces change so much.

On smooth tarmac there’s plenty to be gained by experimenting with the various DAS modes. You can adjust the general setup through three levels, but then there’s another separate menu to change the response, just like you’re calibrating a video game. It goes without saying that a more ‘‘natural’’ feel is preferable in a sporty car, but let’s not be too reactionary: in time DAS could be a welcome feature in your driving life.

There’s a lot going in in the Q60 Red Sport, which is why it’s taken so long to get to important coupestuff like design. I reckon it looks sensational, albeit with a touch of awkward American-style cabforwardness from some angles.

Inside, the quality is impressive, the attention to detail less so. Infiniti isn’t quite there in terms of luxury-car cabin design: the styling themes are pure Nissan and there’s an awkward mismatch in look between the two large screens that dominate the centre console.

‘‘Red’’, by the way, refers to the colour of the calipers on the car’s Akebono performance brake system.

There’s some strange tech in the Q60 Sport, but it still has the ability to surprise and delight in some old-school ways.