1992 Infiniti Q45t - Digging In The Wrong Direction

Aside from the fact that we allow the creators of "The Shawshank Redemption" to take more than their fair share of poetic license along the way to making us believe the number of coincidences that occur in the short story and film, there are a number of valuable lessons we can learn from Andy Dufresene, Red, Brooks, and Warden Norton.  One of the most important being that, in life, you need to first and foremost work smart. After all, had Andy not worked smart, in addition to working hard, he may have ended up in Shawshank's kitchen or laundry and not where he ultimately wanted or needed to be.

Despite working as hard as they did, Nissan dug in the wrong direction when they debuted their wonderful Infiniti Q45 in the United States for model year 1990. A re purposed version of the Nissan President, a long wheel base vehicle previously sold only in Japan that was primarily used by corporate executives and government dignitaries as a limousine, the Q45 was lauded for its crisp handling, superb ergonomics (interior design), powerful engine and impeccable assembly. That said, did Nissan end up in Shawshank's mess hall with the Infiniti Q45? Well, not exactly but they certainly didn't end up at the end of a sewer pipe to later cash in hundreds of thousands of dollars of laundered money.

There were several reasons for that. First, given what it was, where it was being sold for the first time and for what it was being sold for, the original Q45 was a BMW 5 series without being a BMW. And BMW's, particularly back then, weren't for everyone; BMW having the market on dour, high performance automobiles pretty much all to themselves. A drab, ostentatious free, business first cockpit, in a car with an adjusted sticker price of approximately $75,000 in 2017 dollars for sale in the U.S. in 1990? Despite its brilliant execution, the interior of "the Q" fell way short of what well heeled buyers in this country expected of a luxury automobile.

What's more, the ride and handling of the original Q45, our subject car is a 1992 Q45t, was far too "sporty" for most of the targeted clientele. Some say "sporty", some say "stiff", others say "bone jarring"; perspective buyers of the original Q45 said, "let's take that also new for 1990 Lexus LS400 with the flashy interior and supple yet compliant ride for a test drive". No surprise, the Lexus LS400 crushed the Q45 at the box office.

Nissan broke through a wall and little rock hammer in hand, found they were not were they intended to be. Many blame this "prize fight belt buckle" front end for the Q45's less than stellar opening weekend but there was more to it than that. While this bizarre, grill less front end has aged better than say, the front end on an Edsel, it's still a curiosity that Nissan styled the front end of the original Q45 like this when their homeland model featured a more conventional, chrome festooned, if not Lexus LS400 type front end. Infiniti updated the Q45's front end with the front end from the President for 1994 but it turned off perspective buyers who appreciated the original front end while doing little to appeal to Lexus buyers.

While Nissan's luxury division certainly has cache today, it's not at the level of Lexus and chances are it never will be. It was or isn't, after all these years, for a lack of trying either for there have been several Infiniti models, the original Q45 included, that have been outstanding. However, as we've seen time and time again, an outstanding automobile is not a harbinger of strong sales. Hard work after all, in and of itself, is over rated. Combine hard work with working smart, in this case developing an automobile that its target market really wanted, and it would be hard to argue that today Infiniti wouldn't be every bit the Lexus that BMW is a Mercedes Benz.