Yahoo Autos A Rare Chance To See Cars From Nissan's Amazing Heritage Collection
Nissan first mounted a factory-supported racing effort in America 50 years ago, starting with West Coast SCCA competition using Datsun 1500, 1600 and 2000 roadsters. That event pre-dated the first Monterey Historics races by only six years, but time marches on such that the Datsun brand has been replaced by the name of its corporate parent, Nissan; the Historics are now known as the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion; and the 2018 event marks the first time ever that a Japanese automaker will be celebrated as the featured marque of California Car Week’s vintage races.
Past events have seen some spectacular paddock displays from the Old World likes of Ferrari, Porsche, and Mercedes-Benz, among others, and Nissan is stepping up to its new status by curating a 14-car display including racers from its Heritage Collection. These support the more than 50 Datsun/Nissan race cars that will make up a significant chunk of the more than 500 vintage race cars entered.
Those lucky enough to attend the Aug. 23-26 RMMR at Weathertech Raceway at Laguna Seca should watch for the landmark BRE Datsun 510 Trans-Am 2.5 racer from 1970-supported by appearances by team-founder Peter Brock-plus the GTP ZX-Turbo that Geoff Brabham drove to an International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) driver's championship in 1988, winning eight consecutive races.
Nissan’s also bringing its R382 sports-racer ( above) that won the Japan Grand Prix of 1969, and the one-off Nissan R390 GT1 road car (below), neither of which has ever been seen in America before.
Similarly making its first American appearance is a much-more-recent project, the Italdesign-crafted Nissan GT-R50 displayed earlier this summer at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
Nissan’s racing heritage stretches back much more than 50 years overseas-the company first won a race in Tokyo in 1936. When two Datsun 210s won their class in a 10,000-mile rally in Australia under team manager Yutaka Katayama in 1958, the company gained the confidence to begin exporting its cars worldwide. Only a decade later, there were Datsun race cars in America. Now that its pioneering effort has broken through to be featured at the RMMR, can the racing histories of Toyota and Mazda and other Asian marques be far behind?
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