Junkyard Find: 1990 Infiniti Q45

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

A few years ago, I decided that I wanted to own a well-preserved 1990s Japanese luxury car, and my first choice was the Infiniti Q45. Well, it turned out that just about every example of the Q45 got completely trashed by about 2005, and so I found a very nice Coach Edition LS400. Still, though, I love the early Q45’s weirdness and its Nissan President origins, and so I shot this first-year example that I found in California.

These were seriously luxurious and powerful cars for their day, but most of them weren’t cared for so well once they went to their second owners.

This one just barely made it past 150,000 miles.


There is no compromise at any speed.

Take a long, hard test drive.

In Japan, it was called the Nissan Infiniti Q45.

I couldn’t find the weird US-market “Zen” Q45 ad, but here’s the Japanese counterpart.





Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

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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  • Cimarron typeR Cimarron typeR on Mar 12, 2015

    My uncle in Cambridge, MA had one of these. It lived a hard life, outdoor parking for long periods of inactivity followed by infrequent blasts to Conn. and surrounding region. It was pretty much bulletproof and wore quite well, and was the definition of luxury at the time for me.

  • Emanistan Emanistan on Jul 27, 2016

    As philisophical as I try to be about cars, it still hurts me on an almost personal level to see the disrespect the original Q45 was subjected to, and how mistreated so many of the ones that have survived are. I first saw the Q45 at the 1989 auto show at Moscone Center in SF when I was 15, and I'd never seen a car like it. It had a totally unique beauty on the outside, & conveyed quality on every little detail, & to this day, I've never sat in a more comfortable interior, even having ridden in several Mercedes & Beemers since. To my 15 year old mind it was inconceivable that this car wouldn't take the country by storm & become the ultimate prestige machine. This spring a very pretty 1990 Q45 with a low serial number ended up at the local pick-n-pull here in Redding. I was almost tempted to save it, but soon came to grips with the fact that I had neither the time, the money, the space, let alone the trailer to do so, so-even though it makes me feel lie a vandal-I went about saving as much from the crusher as I could. Naturally the cloisonné emblem was the first thing to go, and is now on my wall, then I spent the next few weeks dismantling the doors to get at the pretty oval door handles, then I got all of the seats, front and back, which I'm in the process of restoring in order to mount in my van. Even as a junkyard hulk its a beautiful car. Redding gets very hot, but even with no power to it's AC, the Q45's interior is still comfortable, and it's usually my break spot during long days in the yard. Taking it apart, I'm still impressed by it's build quality: the only junkyard car I've worked with yet that's as solidly put together as a Mercedes.

  • Lorenzo Heh. The major powers, military or economic, set up these regulators for the smaller countries - the big guys do what they want, and always have. Are the Chinese that unaware?
  • Lorenzo The original 4-Runner, by its very name, promised something different in the future. What happened?
  • Lorenzo At my age, excitement is dangerous. one thing to note: the older models being displayed are more stylish than their current versions, and the old Subaru Forester looks more utilitarian than the current version. I thought the annual model change was dead.
  • Lorenzo Well, it was never an off-roader, much less a military vehicle, so let the people with too much money play make believe.
  • EBFlex The best gift would have been a huge bonfire of all the fak mustangs in inventory and shutting down the factory that makes them.Heck, nobody would even have to risk life and limb starting the fire, just park em close together and wait for the super environmentally friendly EV fire to commence.
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