Today's Infiniti hails from when the company advertised their cars with pictures of rock gardens and Bonsai trees. That was Zen, and this is now, and you'll need to decide if this Q45's price reaches nirvana.

A working Porsche that's not a four-pot in the front kind a car for twelve large is almost a slam dunk these days. It was neck and neck for a while over yesterday's owing mostly to the ad that seemed to have been written by the seller using his feet and blind luck, but in the end 60% of you felt it worth its asking. Some of the rest of you were still mad about that Karmann Ghia from Wednesday and took it out on the Porsche.

If you haven't noticed, prices for air-cooled Porsches are going through the roof. Today's Nice…

Hey, do you remember back when the Japanese first introduced their premium brands here in the States? Honda fired the first salvo with Acura, and then Toyota channeled Mercedes Benz with their Lexus brand. Lastly, Nissan got on the top-tier train with Infiniti. Mazda got as far as a brand name and some cars for their upper echelon marque - Amati - but that brand never saw the light of day.

When Nissan brought out Infiniti for the 1990 model year, its debut advertising featured Zen gardens and Bonsai trees rather than the cars themselves. Considering the controversial styling of the brand's initial offering - the Q45 - perhaps that was for the best.

This is emblematic of the efforts Nissan went to to blow up the luxury car archetype. First off, it has no grille, instead featuring a Cloisonné badge between two nondescript and somewhat deadeye'd headlamps. Next up, there's no wood or brightwork inside. At the time of its debut, even BMW was still planking it up on the insides of their top rides.

In place of those time-tested luxury cues the Nissan President-based Q45 had a competent motor and excellent handling, and lots of plastic. The 278-bhp VH45DE is backed up here as in all of these cars by a simple 4-speed automatic. For such a big car - 200-inches overall and 3,950-lbs - it was both fast and quick. Zero to sixty was achievable in under 7 seconds, and it topped out at over 150 miles per hour.

This one is described as 'incredible' and 100% original. From the pics at least it does appear to be in showroom condition, something few people took advantage of seeing when the car was new. It has only 77,000 miles on the clock, a pittance for so robustly engineered a car.

The Q45 is historically significant, but like almost all of the Japanese luxury cars of the early '90s, it's also eminently unremarkable today. If however, you happen to dig these big sedans, and also happen to hold a fondness for rock gardens, then perhaps this seemingly excellent example will be your cup of warm sake.

To make yourself one with this Q45 you'd need to come up with $7,000. That's a lot of dough for an old Infiniti, but then again, when was the last time you saw one of these - especially one so nice?

Is $7,000 a fair deal for this Q45? Or, is that a price that would not have you going to Infiniti and beyond?

You decide!

Phoenix or go if the ad disappears.

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