Junkyard Find: 1992 Infiniti M30
When Nissan, not wanting to be left behind by Toyota, introduced the Infiniti marque in 1989, they needed a sporty coupe to sell alongside the mighty Q45 luxury sedan. No problem, just add some bling to the JDM Nissan Leopard, move the steering wheel to the left side, and you’ve got an instant Lexus SC300 competitor for the American market! Sadly for Nissan, few bought the M30 (though its J30 successor sold pretty well), and M30 junkyard finds are quite rare today. Here’s one that survived the Cash For Clunkers Japanese Luxpocalypse but then succumbed to depreciation five years later.
A good-looking car, but 1992 wasn’t a great year for California car dealers.
Here’s the same VG30 V6 that M30’s 300ZX and Maxima contemporaries got.
Naturally, the Japanese-market ads for the F31 Leopard coupe are far superior to anything shown on the other side of the Pacific.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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I worked the parts dept. for an Infiniti dealership from 1991-93 when these were new. A very '80s "meh" design inside and out, not really a suitable companion to the "clean-sheet" Q45. I thought the first-generation Acura Legend coupe was a much more timeless design. The M30 did look better in pearl white like this one though. I drove my boss's black M30 fairly often-- it seemed pretty powerful and fast but I was never impressed with the handling. The Q45 and G20 both handled much better. It seems to me M30s sold fairly well though, even in Utah where the RWD was horrendous in snow. I remember one day when the transporter set down a brand- new M30 convertible in about 1/2" of snow in the street behind our dealership and it was stuck-- wouldn't move at all without a push from the guys in the shop. We did a pretty good business in aftermarket wheels, wood kits, and gold emblems to "tart up" these rather plain- jane "luxury coupes". We ended up with quite a stockpile of factory takeoff M30 alloy wheels that I sold to a recycler for $5 each. They were so plain no one else wanted them.
There was one of these for sale locally not too long ago. I tried to set up an appointment but never heard back from the guy. Seeing the meh reaction that is happening here, maybe that is good. However, I wound up buying a Lexus SC400 and would have appreciated the Japanese-personal luxury coupe comparison.