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2026 Infiniti QX80 Sport Interior Review: The Second-Best Trim Is Where It’s At

admin Posted on 3 months ago 6 minutes read

As part of Infiniti’s ongoing effort to refresh its offerings, the 2026 Infiniti QX80 Sport joins the brand’s full-size luxury SUV family as its newest trim level, replacing the Sensory. While it doesn’t offer any mechanical changes, the Sport now represents the second-highest spec QX80 you can buy.

Given that it’s one step removed from the pinnacle of the QX80 lineup, the Sport borrows heavily from the top-tier Autograph trim. But whereas the QX80 Autograph wowed us with its cabin materials, we also thought its suite of features couldn’t quite justify the actual use cases. The QX80 Sport strikes us as a much more realistic balance of luxury-level creature comforts you’d actually use. Plus, the dark blue leather Sport-exclusive interior just oozes class.

Not surprisingly given its positioning, the Sport comes with the same 24-speaker Klipsch sound system, biometric cabin cooling, semi-aniline leather first and second rows, open-pore wood trim, and massaging front seats as the Autograph’s interior we recently reviewed. But it loses the second-row massaging seats and touchscreen control panel, as well as the front-console cooling box.

Infotainment

The Sport utilizes the same tri-screen infotainment setup as the Autograph, so our praises and complaints remain the same. Be sure to check out the Autograph’s interior review for our download on how that all works.

ProPilot Assisting Tech

Nissan/Infiniti’s hands-free advance adaptive cruise control, ProPilot Assist 2.1, is standard on the Autograph and optional for the Sport. Our test QX80 Sport came without it and instead was equipped with the 1.1 version of ProPilot Assist.

While we would have appreciated being able to drive the long swaths of highway with our hands in our lap, the QX80 Sport’s ProPilot Assist 1.1 did its job of reducing highway fatigue. It works as a normal advanced cruise control system with lane keeping capabilities. But a few times, the system pushed us out of our lane for no good reason, forcing us to jerk the wheel back to stay centered.

Largely because of those quirks, we didn’t find it to be the most confidence-inspiring system we’ve tested (the long-term Honda Civic Hybrid’s is more impressive), but it gets the job done the majority of the time. After a deluge of salty, snowy slush splattered the SUV’s sensors, we didn’t use the adaptive cruise again until the car was clean and its “vision” clear.

Dusk Blue Color Scheme

This was great to look at. Found only on the QX80 Sport, the dark blue leather is paired with a dark gray headliner and pillars, and dark open-pore wood trim. It wound up being even more refined than the Autograph’s burgundy and metal pinstriping getup. Seats remained comfortable and supportive throughout.

Second-Row Seat

As mentioned above, the Sport’s second-row seats ditch the massage function and touchscreen controls. Given the QX80’s overall massage performance wasn’t terribly impressive to start with, this isn’t a huge loss. And the omittance of the central console and touchscreen is great.

The touchscreen’s functionality is extremely redundant, as we noted in the Autograph review. Without it there, the Sport gains two easily accessible cupholders and a phone pad. You still get your own climate controls, so there’s not much more you’d need. More limber passengers can also step right over the tray to access the third row without needing to fold down the second row.

Third-Row Seat

The Sport’s third-row, three-seat bench is much more in line with what everyone else offers. The seat leathers are nice, and there are two outboard cupholders and one USB port on either side, but that’s about it. The Autograph’s heated seats are gone, so sitting back here isn’t as much of an event as it is in the SUV’s other seats. It’s still a fairly spacious third row, however, all things considered.

Cargo Space

As we suspected, the QX80 Sport’s lack of a bulky second-row console means it has a fairly flat cargo floor with all the seats folded down. We were able to load a few pieces of sizable furniture tidily into the QX80, and the ease with which we were able to slide everything in place was super convenient.

Cargo capacity with all the seats upright is unchanged from the Autograph, which is to say still pretty small and endemic to regular-wheelbase, full-size three-row SUVs. But the trade-off is decent legroom for all three rows.

How Much?

The 2026 Infiniti QX80 Sport starts at $104,140 and comes more or less fully loaded. The only extras Infiniti tacked onto our test vehicle were the Sport Exterior package ($1,060), Interior Lighting package ($1,060), and Premium Paint ($695). Nearly $700 for black paint? Pass. Actually, we’d pass on all of these options, as we don’t think they really add all that much.

Among full-size luxury SUVs, the Infiniti can count the Lincoln Navigator and Cadillac Escalade as competitors, though both offer extended-wheelbase variants, whereas the QX80 does not. But the QX80’s price undercuts both significantly, so you can consider it something of a bargain.

In Conclusion

If we were to choose, we’d take the Sport over the top-tier Autograph, which is nearly $10,000 more. Not only did the Sport not have the redundant second-row screen, but the lack of that entire console made it easier to move around the cabin and load cargo into it with all the seats folded. We liked the dark blue interior best of all.

We thought we’d miss the option of being able to use the hands-free version of ProPilot Assist, but the regular adaptive cruise control system proved to be just fine other than its few foibles we experienced. And there’s no subscription fee later on for that.

It’s typical behavior to reach for the top trim because it’s usually the best model the brand has to offer. But in the case of the Infiniti QX80? The second-best Sport is where it’s at.