These special world-renowned Nissan VQ engines have pushed the boundaries for street/track cars for the last 20 years. The VQ engines created by Nissan are V6 engines. There are many different types of VQ engines. The appeal to these engines are that they are not super expensive, they are lightweight and have high horsepower for the size of the cars. The VQ has a meaning the V is volume, and Q is sometimes used as an engineering symbol for efficiency. Therefore the VQ designation would indicate that the design priority was focused on volumetric efficiency.  

In 1994 Nissan created the first VQ engine. In 1995 Nissan’s new VQ engine won Ward’s Best top 10 best engines. In 2000, Nissan made the first VQ35DE engine; that engine comes stock at 300 hp off the line. With the capability of reaching 538 hp before the engine is pushed to its limits and the block cracks. This engine is in 13 different Nissan models; a few of those cars are the Nissan 350z and the Infiniti G35. The appeal to these engines is the horsepower and the reliability; they are very affordable for anything under $10,000. The VQ35de engine is good for 200,000 miles until maintenance starts to become an issue. The VQ35de is notorious for its oil pump breaking; therefore, if the driver hits 7300 Rpms you will start losing oil pressure.

In 2002 Nissan made the first 350z also known as the Nissan Fairlady. They only made 1,613 units of the 350z, so that makes it an extremely rare sports car. The 350z can reach 250k miles, they have won many awards in the last 13 years for those VQ engines. When having a rare car the price will range, $5,990 to $42,900 to own one of these modern masterpieces.  The reason these cars are so highly sought after in the car community. These cars are cheap, reliable and the modability is vast. For coupes, sedans and z’s alike, the reputation for some of these vehicles in the car community is bad. 

The Infiniti G35 is known as the poor man’s 350z, even though they both cost around the same amount. Infiniti is Nissan’s luxury brand. Infiniti was only allowed to have 4000 G35 coupes and sedans created in one year and Nissan’s 350z was allowed to have 5000 a year made. All Infinitis require premium gas of 91 octane or higher. All of these models have highly sought-after manual transmissions which are even rarer than the automatic models.

Many people love it and many people hate it. The notorious roaring VQs have a distinct sound that you will hear ripping down your nearest road or highway. They sound like a trumpet, many people hate it because of the obnoxiously loud exhaust some VQ owners put on their cars. Because of the 60-degree angle of the pistons that is what creates that iconic sound.

Over the 20 years, Nissan has made this great car, they have pushed boundaries and continued to make great cars for everyone to drive from the youngest in the car community to the elderly people who just want a fast daily driver. They are not stopping anytime soon as they just released a new EV model that will change Infiniti and Nissan for the better!