Do you think that a vehicle can be both a utility vehicle and luxurious? Of course you do, it's 2011 and there are luxury SUVs all over the place. But back in 1997 you probably didn't.
In 1997, Infiniti was jumping into the nascent luxury SUV market, introducing their luxury SUV to the broad market in the US. Land Rover had been there a while but was a very specialty marque and the Acura SLX (Isuzu Rodeo) had been introduced only the year before. Infiniti had to show off how their vehicle could be rough on the outside and soft on the inside. It was a slightly modified Nissan Pathfinder, so the outside part was the easy part, and a quick spiff-up of the interior brought some trappings of luxury.
The normal arbiters of luxury, the European marques, were way behind on the SUV trend and wouldn't show up with luxury SUVs for another 4 years (Mercedes ML) or more.
This spot aired during KRON's show "Sit Down with Gary Radnich" directly after the 5th game of the Baseball World Series on NBC on October 23rd, 1997.
