Infiniti FX50 by Vettel costs £100k

What price, exclusivity? Mull over that while we relay some information Infiniti confirmed for TopGear.com: the new Sebastian Vettel special edition Infiniti FX will cost around £100,000.

That's one hundred thousand British pounds. Sterling. And Infiniti clearly isn't perturbed by the thought of one hundred thousand British pounds being spent on an FX with a 5.0-litre V8, because, as a spokesman told us, "it's all about the £100k SUV at the moment."

In its defence, Infiniti is probably right. Look at the upcoming Bentley EXP 9 F (or maybe, squint at it). Lamborghini is throwing its hat into the SUV game too, as will Maserati and so forth. All luxo-SUVs with big price tags.

And for all the discussion about expense and excess, it's probably a moot point anyway, because of the 50 Seb Vettel Infiniti FXs destined for western Europe, eight have already been snapped up (nine if you count Vettel's very own one, car number 1 of 50).

For this rather significant outlay, you do get Infiniti's 5.0-litre V8, now boosted to 415bhp thanks to a new exhaust system and a reprogrammed ECU. We've had a listen to this exhaust on a demonstrator model: it sounds great.

The top speed restrictor has been taken off too so the Vettel FX will hit 186mph, while the 0-62mph sprint has been trimmed from 5.8secs to 5.6secs. Infiniti has fitted stiffer springs and uprated dampers, it sits 20mm lower than a standard FX50 S, has a five per cent lower coefficient of drag, weighs 46kg less and sits on 21in black alloys.

There's real carbon fibre on the inside, specially trimmed seats with ‘SV' logos and purple stitching (because purple is associated with royalty) and a metal plate featuring ‘The Finger's' very own signature.

Says Vettel of his Infiniti FX: "This is the first road car I have helped develop. The result is an Infiniti I am very proud to have my name on. It is all I hoped for: 186mph, plenty of downforce - and I can still fit my mountain bike in the back. Plus it is totally exclusive - and as an Infiniti driver, that's important."

Ah yes, exclusivity. Consider this, just a few hundred FXs have found homes, with fewer than 15 per cent being the V8 version. And the average price of an FX sold? Around £54,000. So it's already rare. Is this even rarer Vettel version worth the £100k?