INFINITI may be a new name to British drivers but Nissan has been attempting to park its tanks on BMW’s lawns for nearly as long as Lexus.

The brand was launched in the US 23 years ago to target the luxury market that was otherwise out of reach of Nissan.

All the major Japanese manufacturers adopted the same strategy: Toyota launched Lexus, Honda had Acura and Mazda called its premium brand Xedos.

Toyota and Mazda launched in Europe with varying success.

Mazda was forced to retreat – withdrawing the Xedos brand after a couple of unsuccessful years – but Lexus soldiered on thanks to its parent’s deeper pockets.

Now Infiniti is available in Europe as well.

But it has taken Toyota two decades to establish Lexus as a credible alternative to BMW, Mercedes and Audi. Arguably, it only succeeded thanks to hybrid power – something the Germans could not offer.

Infiniti has no such unique selling point. Its cars are good looking but still rather anonymous to us Europeans (its brand awareness in 2009 was a mere 2.5 per cent), the dealer network is tiny and, until recently, the range lacked diesels and a hybrid.

Initially, the brand sent out mixed messages: one month it was a luxury brand, the next it was a performance brand. But why would drivers want to buy a Japanese BMW when they could own the real thing?

So Infinti has a mountain to climb.

Nevertheless, Nissan chief executive Carlos Ghosn has set a wildly ambitious target.

According to Automotive News he believes it can sell 100,000 cars in Europe by 2016.

That’s an enormous jump for a marque that sold only 232 cars in the UK in 2010 and is still looking to sell 10,000 units Europe-wide this year. To put that into perspective, last year BMW sold nearly 400,000 units of its 3-Series model alone.

But the vehicle that could turn Infiniti around in Europe is the car that will now be built in Sunderland.

If Infiniti is to succeed in Europe it needs a car designed and built with Europeans in mind, not hand-me-downs from the US.

It needs a competitor in the hugely popular premium hatchback sector currently dominated by the Audi A3, the Mini and the BMW 1-Series.

That vehicle will be closely related to the Etherea concept first seen at the Geneva Motor Show in 2011.

The concept Etherea used a hybrid petrol-electric design but its 2.5-litre supercharged petrol engine is still too big. Infiniti will have to offer smaller petrol and diesel variants if it wants to gain traction in the European market (both the Audi and BMW start at 1.4).

But Infiniti understands the task it is facing. As Bastien Schupp, the European marketing director, said: “We’re aware of the difficulty. It’s like importing Japanese champagne to France.”

And with new models just around the corner, thanks to Nissan Sunderland, it will soon have the right product mix to compete.