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Competition update

Once again, the Z-car proved itself a worthy competitor on the race tracks of America. Although Bob Sharp had experienced a disappointing TransAm season with the Z31 in 1984 (he had prepared a 2.8 litre machine for film star Paul Newman), Datsun veteran, Jim Fitzgerald, took the SCCA GT1 title with his 300ZX Turbo that year, despite the race being red-flagged after a massive pile-up involving most of the field.

Although Bob Sharp went on record stating that he would like to tackle Le Mans with a Nissan, there was no sign of him at the famous French event in 1985. In the States, however, Pepe Pombo drove his normally-aspirated car to victory in the SCCA Showroom Stock (A) category, with Jim Roberts coming second in a similar car. Newman managed to wrest the GT1 crown from Fitzgerald, who was runner-up on this occasion. Steve Nowicki, driving the 300ZX Turbo, was successful in the SCCA Pro-Rally series, coming fifth in the overall standings and declared GT Production Champion at the end of the 1985 season.

In 1986, Max Jones and Tom Kendall took the IMSA Firehawk Endurance Championship with the 300ZX Turbo. Paul Newman retained his GT1 title that year, while Scott Sharp (Bob Sharp’s son) took the spoils in that category for 1987 and 1988. Pombo regained his Showroom Stock (A) crown in 1987, and took the SCCA Escort Endurance Championship the following year, again with the 300ZX.

Paul Newman driving the Bob Sharp Racing 300ZX in the SCCA TransAm series. Sadly, results did not live up to expectations on this occasion, but Jim Fitzgerald managed to take the 1984 GT1 title in a similar car.

The Newman-Sharp Racing 300ZX running in the IMSA GTO Championship. Scott Sharp, Bob Sharp’s son, won the 1987 SCCA GT1 crown with a sister car, and repeated the feat the following year.

Meanwhile, Electramotive had prepared a car to contest IMSA’s highly-competitive GTP events. Design work began in mid-1984, based around a Lola T810 chassis and an Electramotive-prepared V6 producing up to 650bhp. The Nissan GTP ZX Turbo made its debut at Laguna Seca on 5 May 1985, finishing a creditable 11th. It was a learning year with the car, with ninth place the best result of the season.

Geoff Brabham drove the car to third at Portland in July 1986, and Elliot Forbes-Robinson (an ex-CanAm driver who’d earlier won an SCCA title for Datsun with the 280Z) managed to take fourth a week later at Sears Point. However, one fifth place and a couple more top ten finishes were all the Electramotive team had to show for the remainder of the season.

Undeterred, Brabham and Forbes-Robinson made a good start in 1987, taking victory in the second round of the series (at Miami), beating a gaggle of Porsche 962s and setting the fastest lap in the process. David Hobbs took the car to fifth at Laguna Seca, but, apart from another isolated fastest lap and a sixth place, the rest of the season produced a string of disappointing results.

Geoff Brabham did exceptionally well in the 1988 GTP season, winning no fewer than eight races in a row, and another single event with a new car based on a chassis designed by Trevor Harris, with bodywork styled by Yoshi Suzuka. Sadly, even this was not enough to stop Porsche taking the manufacturer’s title by just one point. However, Brabham claimed the GTP Driver’s Championship, with teammate John Morton finishing ninth.

Brabham and the Electramotive car dominated in the following season as well, giving Nissan the manufacturer’s crown in the GTP series. Brabham was declared champion again, and teammate Chip Robinson was runner-up. The unlikely prediction in the April 1985 issue of Road & Track that a GTP champion would one day come “... not from Weissach or Turin or Modena or Detroit, but from El Segundo” had definitely come about. As a matter of interest, Nissan had returned to Le Mans in 1986, a decade after privateers had first contested the legendary race with the original Z. One Group C car, with a March chassis, finished 16th, whilst the other failed to complete the course. Win Percy came 14th with Allan Grice and Mike Wilds in 1988, the last year that the March chassis was used.

The Electramotive team launched an attack on IMSA’s GTP series in 1985 with the 650bhp Nissan GTP ZX Turbo. Sadly, it didn’t win any races that first season, but 1986 looked more promising. By 1987, team effort finally paid off with a victory in Miami.

Geoff Brabham - a great driver maintaining the family tradition (his father is Sir Jack Brabham of Formula One fame).

The Z32 in competition

As the new Z-car was being readied for launch, secret work to construct a GTO racer was already in progress in America (the 240SX was being used as the main contender in the GTU category). It was largely developed by the now-familiar team at Electramotive: Devendorf, John Knepp, Wes Moss and Trevor Harris.

The spaceframe chassis had been designed by Harris, and the engine was very similar to the GTP unit, with special aluminium block and single-cam, two-valve heads. However, the GTP engine was a single turbo, three-litre lump, whilst the GTO version was a 2.8 litre, twin-turbo powerplant. Output was similar, though, at 690bhp.

In 1989, their first season, the two GTO cars, run by Cunningham Racing and driven by Steve Millen and John Morton, were found to require further development. Millen won at Elkhart Lake, but turbo lag was a disadvantage on the twistier circuits, and the drivers found the cars quite a handful.

In the IMSA GTP series, Electramotive gave Geoff Brabham the driver’s title in 1988, 1989 and 1990, and Nissan the manufacturer’s crown in 1989 and 1990; Nissan lost the 1988 championship by just one point.

Geoff Brabham in action in the GTP series. Many of the IMSA and Group C Nissans have survived, and can often by seen in historic races.

Don Devendorf - President of the Electramotive concern, and a fine racing driver who did an awful lot for the Nissan marque in America. This picture was taken in 1977, hence the Datsun race overalls.

Steve Millen at the wheel of the 300ZX Turbo-based IMSA GTO racer.

That year, as already noted, the team in America won the GTP title for Nissan (Japan’s first) with ten wins from 15 starts. In October 1989, Nissan actually took over the Electramotive operation, renaming it Nissan Performance Technology Incorporated, with Don Devendorf as President.

Also during 1989, Nissan Motorsports Europe Ltd, of Milton Keynes, had taken over the Group C programme, which had begun in 1986 (although Nismo still entered some of the rounds). By this time, the chassis was based on a Lola, and the Nissan-designed V8 engines were producing over 800bhp. In the 1990 Le Mans 24-hour Race, Masahiro Hasemi and Toshio Suzuki took their Group C machine to fifth overall, the best placing achieved by any of the seven Nissans at the Sarthe track that year.

For the 1990 IMSA season, the GTO car had a longer wheelbase. Millen said it was “... quicker, easier to drive, and easier to set up,” but a championship victory was not forthcoming. However, Nissan won the GTP title again that year, with Brabham scoring a hat trick, and Robinson repeating his second place finish in the series. Other Nissan drivers came eighth and ninth.

American competition news

As far as racing in the States was concerned, Nissan took the honours in the 1991 IMSA GTP series. In the same year, Dick Rutan (the pilot of Voyager - the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world) used two Nissan/Electramotive V6 engines to power his Pond Racer in an attempt to capture the world speed record for propeller-driven aeroplanes.

The 300ZX captured the GTS driver’s and manufacturer’s titles in 1992, but won only two of the nine races in 1993. Nevertheless, Nissan retained the manufacturer’s crown in the GTS category, as well as the GTU title for the third consecutive year, thanks to the 240SX (or Silvia); Nissan man Butch Leitzinger won 1993 driver’s championship.

Group C action from the Nürburgring in August 1989. UK-based Nissan Motorsports Europe Ltd assumed responsibility for Nissan’s involvement in Group C racing during 1989, the same year that Electramotive was taken under Nissan’s wing in the States.

The R90CK Group C car at Silverstone. Nissan came third in the 1990 WSPC, trailing behind Mercedes-Benz and Jaguar.

In 1994, the 300ZX took the flag in three out of the first six GTS events; results that were again reminiscent of the heady days of the early 1970s. At the end of the season, Nissan had the GTS driver’s and manufacturer’s titles in the bag once more.

A highlight of the year came in February at the prestigious Daytona 24-hour Race. Two works 300ZX Turbos were entered (one driven by Steve Millen, Johnny O’Connell and John Morton, the other by Paul Gentilozzi, Scott Pruett and Butch Leitzinger, although Millen also took the wheel of the second car for a short spell). In fact, these cars provided the closest battle, despite the strong field which had started the race. Gentilozzi eventually lifted the trophy, claiming overall victory for Nissan on his 44th birthday.

As well as winning the IMSA Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12-hour event at Sebring, the 300ZX Turbo model also took the GTS Class title at the Le Mans 24-hour Race. By so doing, it became the only car ever to accomplish this feat within the same year.

In the Sports Car Club of America series, the 300ZX took Showroom Stock (A) honours in 1992, 1993 and 1994, maintaining a tradition of success in the SCCA arena that the Z-car had established over a quarter of a century.

A 1991 piece of advertising from America.

The US racing programme brought Nissan a great deal of good publicity. This is the 1994 IMSA GTS car of Paul Gentilozzi, Scott Pruett and Butch Leitzinger racing at Daytona, and seen here featured in a Japanese advert from that time.