The battle of the full-size luxury sedans became all the more competitive through the 1980s, as Japanese brands like Nissan and Toyota turned their attention to getting the better of the trend-setting Germans. Having already largely conquered the compact market through the middle of the decade, the Japanese automotive industry wanted to show that it could nail a car designed to make you feel special, as opposed to one that’ll simply get you to your destination.
Nissan elected to go the extra mile in its attempts to tempt buyers into spending money on its latest creation.
How Nissan Built A Lexus Fighter With A Secret Weapon Under The Hood
For a long time, the likes of BMW, Cadillac, and Mercedes-Benz had enjoyed the full-size luxury sedan market all to themselves, but the end of the 1980s signaled a considerable sea change. The Japanese were coming, and they meant business.
The big manufacturers, namely Honda, Nissan, and Toyota, were aware that their names were more closely aligned with saving money than luxury, so each founded its own luxury-focused spin-off brand. Honda had Acura, Toyota developed Lexus, and Nissan established Infiniti. Acura’s Legend was the first such model to reach the market in 1986, before Lexus’ LS and Infiniti’s Q45 were unleashed in 1989.
Like most range-topping luxury sedans of the time, the Q45 came loaded with a large, naturally aspirated V8 under the hood. With a displacement of 4.5-liters, the posh Nissan was able to send 278 horsepower and 292 lb-ft of torque to the rear wheels. In order to ensure as smooth a drive as possible, the car used a four-speed automatic transmission. For most models, an independent suspension setup was included, which was tuned to provide a compliant and comfortable ride.
Infiniti Priced The Q45 Above Lexus – And Paid For It In The Showroom
Knowing they had little to no brand awareness from the outset, the Japanese method of breaking into the luxury market was to seriously undercut the likes of Mercedes. Whereas a 4.2-liter V8-powered 420 SEL would have set you back a cool $62,500 in 1990, and a 7-Series was just shy of $50k, a Lexus LS 400 demanded just $35,000.
Considering Lexus poured around $1 billion into the car’s development, this was a bit of a bargain. Infiniti believed it had built a better product than its rival, however, and instead asked $38,000 if you wanted a Q45 to grace your driveway.
In Infiniti’s defense, the Q45 was considerably more powerful than its Lexus rival, as the LS 400’s 4.0-liter V8 only brought 250 hp and 268 lb-ft of torque to the battle. Still, power isn’t everything, and the fact that Toyota started from a blank sheet with the LS 400 showed. It felt more special as a result, and when twinned with its cheaper MSRP and the fact that it had achieved better brand awareness at the time, it therefore fared much better in the sales race than the Q45. Whereas Infiniti managed to shift just under 14,000 Q45s in 1990, Lexus waved off over 63,000 examples of its LS 400.
The Hydraulic Active Suspension That Made The Q45a Unlike Any Other Luxury Sedan
While the Q45 got badly beaten by its Lexus rival in the luxury sedan sales race, it deserves to be remembered for more than that. One of the best ways of achieving an excellent ride is by using active suspension, which can get softer or stiffer depending on the kind of road or driving the vehicle is undertaking. The advantage of this is that the car can provide its occupants with a supple ride when cruising along, before stiffening itself up when tackling a fun driving road to help reduce body roll. Such a setup can also prevent a car from pitching from the front and rear under acceleration and braking, further improving the ride quality.
Like its LS 400 rival, the Q45 was made available with such a system. Unlike the Lexus, though, which used a more common airbag-based setup, the Q45 used one that relied on hydraulic actuators. Essentially, an actuator that used hydraulic fluid to function was installed on each corner of the car, and could be filled or emptied depending on which corner of the car needed leveling the most.
To work this out, a series of G sensors fed information about the car’s position to the onboard computer, which would then send the right amount of fluid to each actuator to keep the car level.
The system could also raise the car by 0.78 inches on command, which was useful for clearing things like speed humps on the road. Every specimen equipped with it was designated the Q45a by Infiniti.
Sources: Infiniti.
Read the full article on CarBuzz
This article originally appeared on CarBuzz and is republished here with permission.
Read the full article here