Picture Time: Infiniti's Forgotten M30, With a 300ZX Engine
For two years right at the inception of the Infiniti brand, the automaker’s lineup featured an M30 coupe and convertible. Sharing a body with the JDM Nissan Leopard, under the hood lay the VG30 engine from the delightful Nissan 300ZX.
This one’s clean enough to warrant a Picture Time, but not rare enough for Rare Rides duty. Check out this maroon rectangle.
Convertible versions started out as coupes. The drop tops were built at the port of entry on North American shores, as there was no Nissan Leopard convertible in Japan.
The M30 was available only between 1990 and 1992 before being dropped without a replacement.
Indeed, the next convertible offered by Infiniti would arrive a full 17 years later with the introduction of the G37 cabriolet in 2009.
This example is for sale on eBay right now and, apart from a few interior quibbles, is in excellent condition.
Ask is $7,000, and there are lots more pictures on the ad. Have a look — you don’t see these very often in this sort of condition.
[Images via seller]
Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.
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This and the 1st gen M have been favorites of the 90s for me. I've driven a J30 , which was really the 1st true 4DSC for Nissan. Theres a Matt Farah test drive in an LS swapped J30 on youtube, but that has no appeal to me. Give a VG swap and 5mt.
Engine bay pic is very interesting. It looks like it uses the same shortened intake plenum that's used on VG30E-powered 87-88 S12s. I didn't know any other model used that.