A 16-year-old kid buys a Nissan 350Z. Ten days later, he wrecks it at a car show, takes out a fire hydrant, and nearly plows into spectators. The video goes viral, and now the fallout has arrived in the form of a blanket ban.
Supercar Saturday, a free weekly car show that’s run for seven years in Omaha, Nebraska, announced over Facebook that every Nissan and Infiniti powered by the VQ V6 engine is officially prohibited from attending. The 350Z, 370Z, G25, G35, G37, Q40, Q50, Q60 — all of them, turned away at the gate. No exceptions.
Organizer Jamal Rahmanzai told Road & Track the decision wasn’t easy. He built Supercar Saturday as a family-friendly gathering, free and open to all. But repeated incidents involving VQ-platform cars — burnouts, engine revving, reckless driving, and that near-catastrophic 350Z crash — pushed him to the wall.
The pressure was mounting to cancel the entire show. Rahmanzai didn’t want to kill something he’d spent years building, so he reached for the scalpel instead of the axe. The VQ ban stays in place for the entire 2026 season, minimum.
After that, he’ll reassess — but only if those same cars stop showing up to other local events with what he described as a “street takeover” mentality. VQ owners can still attend as spectators. They just can’t bring their cars, and local police will be on hand to enforce the rule.
Rahmanzai knows this punishes responsible owners. He said so himself. But case-by-case enforcement isn’t practical when you’re running a free show with limited resources and a crowd full of families.
The math doesn’t work. One bad hit, one lawsuit, one child in the wrong place — and Supercar Saturday ceases to exist entirely.
The announcement racked up more than 1,000 shares on Facebook almost immediately. Predictably, the internet fired back with the obvious question: What about Mustangs? Hellcats? Lifted trucks doing dumb things?
Fair enough. But Rahmanzai says the VQ crowd is the specific, recurring problem in his city. Omaha’s car scene has its own ecosystem, and the cheap, plentiful, surprisingly powerful VQ-powered Nissan has become the vehicle of choice for young drivers with more throttle than judgment.
There’s a reason these cars keep ending up in trouble. A decent 350Z or G35 can still be had for well under $10,000. They sound great, look aggressive, and put enough power down to get a teenager into serious trouble.
Ward’s Auto named the VQ35 one of the best engines of the 20th century. Nissan built a masterpiece. It just happens to be accessible to people who haven’t yet learned what “consequences” means.
The ban is notably incomplete. Nissan Frontiers, Pathfinders, and Maximas also run VQ engines but didn’t make the list. Apparently the organizers are betting that nobody in a midsize pickup is going to do a burnout leaving a car show. They’re probably right.
This is what happens when a car’s reputation becomes inseparable from its worst owners. The Nissan Z and the Infiniti G-series built enormous enthusiast communities over two decades. Clean builds, track-day regulars, weekend cruisers who never hurt anyone — those people just lost access to a local show because of kids who treat public spaces like their personal drift pad.
Rahmanzai didn’t want to do this. He said it plainly. But a free car show lives and dies on community trust, and that trust had been shredded one VQ exhaust note at a time. The ban is blunt, imperfect, and arguably unfair. It’s also the only reason Supercar Saturday still exists at all.
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