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Posted
Mar 02 2010, 08:15 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 19 comment(s)
Here's the second part of my Skyline retrospective from November '08.
Now we will continue our look back at the history of the Nissan Skyline from where we left off yesterday, with the R30 chassis. The R30 was released in 1981 and moved towards a more modern design than the C210 model. The coupe versions in particular were very good looking cars with a sleek, stretched out look. In Japan the R30 Skyline TV commercials featured legendary actor and driver Paul Newman, and there was even a special "Paul Newman version" of the car sold in Japan.The example in the photo above is the 1981 2000GT-ES coupe model, which was powered by the turbocharged L20ET engine. ...
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Posted
Mar 01 2010, 01:26 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 25 comment(s)
Note - To kick off "Skyline Week", here's a repost of a retrospective I did during Nissan Month in November '08.
The Skyline is one of Japan's longest running car models and Nissan celebrated the 50th anniversary of the car in 2007. 50+ years is a long time for ANY car model, especially a Japanese one. Actually, to say "Nissan Skyline Retrospective" is not entirely correct as the earliest models were not made by Nissan itself, but by the Prince Motor Company, which merged with Nissan in 1966. The model pictured above is the first Skyline ever, the 1957 Prince Skyline....
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Posted
Jan 25 2010, 08:39 AM
by
John Brooks
with 12 comment(s)
Twenty Years.............roughly a third of most people's adult life and yet it seems to have flashed by in the twinkling of an eye. Back in 1990 I had just left the advertising world and was working in Covent Garden for a design agency, we were so hip and so cutting edge or so we thought. Actually it was pretty good time for me, I seem to recall getting a new company car early in the year, a convertable 325 BMW, leather, flash wheels, The Full Monty. The pay and perks were pretty good too, so...
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Posted
Jan 22 2010, 01:15 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 10 comment(s)
Hot rodding and custom car building has always been one of the best mediums for personal expression. Whether it's a bold new way of pulling that extra MPH on the salt flats, or a technique that simply adds a unique look to a car, the world of hot rods and customs if full of self-styled artists. Of all these people, few are more well known than Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. From his pinstriping to his show car builds to his famous weirdo characters, Ed "Big Daddy" Roth was a man who embodies the creative spirit of hot rod and custom car building, and he's considered by many to be the father of "kustom kulture"....
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Posted
Jan 07 2010, 07:31 PM
by
John Brooks
with 10 comment(s)
misfit n [ˈmɪsˌfɪt] 1. a person not suited in behaviour or attitude to a particular social environment 2. something that does not fit or fits badly In our continuing look and mavericks and misfits it is perhaps appropriate to consider the definition of such terms. The first decade of this century saw the steady growth of endurance and sportscar racing, there have been a few hiccups I'll grant you but the prevailing trajectory is upwards. The ALMS has been part of this success, not as much depth...
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Posted
Jan 04 2010, 10:06 AM
by
John Brooks
with 16 comment(s)
Bernard Charles Ecclestone.............OK most of you might have heard of him, he's that rich guy who effectively runs Formula One's business and has done for the past 35 years. The Brits amongst you might also know him as the Bad Guy who has made the British Racing Drivers' Club jump through hoops just to keep a British Grand Prix on the calendar and at Silverstone. Those who have to toil in the outdated facility might take a different view. Actually this only tells a small part of the...
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Posted
Jan 03 2010, 12:03 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 17 comment(s)
In fitting with our celebration of the Nissan S-Chassis, here's a repost of a story I did back in November '08.
And now for a look at the history of another one of Nissan's most famous cars, the Silvia and its sister-models. I'm sure when most of you hear "Silvia", you probably picture a tuned S13 or S15 blasting through a corner sideways, but the model actually has roots that go back 45 years. The first Nissan Silvia was the CSP311 model, shown at the 1964 Tokyo Motor Show....
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Posted
Jan 02 2010, 07:20 AM
by
John Brooks
with 22 comment(s)
Misfits and Mavericks? Sounds like most of us involved with SpeedHunters...............but it set me thinking and there at the top of the list was a man who died 28 years ago but whose legacy still shapes motorsport today. Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman founded Lotus Cars and ran a motorsport team like no other, a brilliant engineer and innovator, summed up by my old pal, Mike Lawrence in his biography of the man as A Wayward Genius. Chapman was an aeronautical engineer by training and used the theories...
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Posted
Dec 27 2009, 02:15 PM
by
John Brooks
with 14 comment(s)
So 1995 saw a top ten finish at Le Mans for the NISMO run Nissan Skyline GT-R LM, how would it fare twelve months down the line? At first glance the car was largely unchanged, only the most observant would see the new rear wing, struts and endplates. However under the skin there were many developments. The engine was now 2800cc as the stroke had been increased on the RB26DETT to give even more power. The Garrett twin turbo arrangement set at around 1.4 bar now gave a quoted figure of over 600bhp...
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Posted
Dec 24 2009, 06:15 PM
by
John Brooks
with 21 comment(s)
After the demise of Group C and IMSA GTP in 1992 it was clear to all that endurance racing would have to go back to its road car roots. And so it proved, in 1994 Stephane Ratel, Jurgen Barth and Patrick Peter formed an alliance and created the BPR Series. They ran a number of of races that were for racing versions of street legal sportscars, mainly Porsches but also Ferraris, Venturis and even a Callaway Corvette. By the time that the 4 Hours of Spa rolled round that year there was a reasonable field...
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Posted
Dec 21 2009, 07:45 PM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 23 comment(s)
With 2010 fast approaching I can't help but wonder what the new year will bring. There will be tons of events waiting for us, close racing in various kinds of motorsport and new interesting cars that will help the automotive culture as a whole evolve. But as we begin another chapter I can't help but reminisce at what has helped shape the scene we love so much today. This is why I have chosen to take a look at one event that I always enjoyed so much, the Big X. Usually held at the beginning...
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Posted
Dec 04 2009, 12:15 PM
by
John Brooks
with 7 comment(s)
For those competing in the 2000 Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona International Speedway this was the sign that they wanted to be first to see after the chequered flag had been waved on Sunday afternoon. Victory Lane after 24 hours of racing, it doesn't get any better than that. The Sun punched its way West across the Atlantic, for those of us with business at Daytona International Speedway it was time stop admiring the colours over the ocean and head to the track. The weather was forecast to remain...
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Posted
Dec 03 2009, 08:41 AM
by
John Brooks
with 5 comment(s)
Grand Am is Ten Years Old! Happy Birthday to its President, Roger Edmondson, and his gang of pirates down on West International Speedway Boulevard. So as part of the December Review & Retrospective Month SpeedHunters will have a look at the first race that was sanctioned by Grand-Am or the Grand American Road Racing Association as it was called back then. This was of course the 2000 Rolex 24 Hours held at Daytona International Speedway. For most observers the first race was one of the high points...
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Posted
Dec 02 2009, 07:19 PM
by
John Brooks
with 13 comment(s)
A new year brought fresh inspiration to the Nissan and TWR R390 project. The disaster of the 1997 Le Mans race was analysed and the car underwent a transformation. The R390 grew by 13 centimetres, the rear wing was repositioned and the aerodynamics were altered to improve airflow over the rear. Most importantly the transmission was changed. The X-Trac casing was retained but all the intenals were now from Nissan themselves. The brakes were also new including an ABS system. There were three 98 spec...
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Posted
Dec 02 2009, 02:56 AM
by
John Brooks
with 6 comment(s)
Fastest in the PreQualifyiing Weekend, the mood in the TWR Nissan camp would have been quietly confident. Or it should have been, those of us on the outside would have heard that there had been a successful three day test at Magny Cours, all was plain sailing. The more observant, not me I hasten to add, would have questioned why the exhaust system had been re-routed from back to side, not something lightly undertaken. The answer lay with annual dust up between the ACO and TWR over interpretation...
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Posted
Dec 01 2009, 07:00 AM
by
John Brooks
with 15 comment(s)
The announcement that Nissan will, all other things being equal, return to the Le Mans 24 Hours next year with the GT1 GTR prompted me to have a look back at the last time Nissan competed in the GT1 class. Way back to 1997 and 1998 with the amazing Nissan R390. After the demise of Group C and IMSA GTP there was a plan to make the GT category more in tune with road cars, so the Japanese manufacturers responded by building GT versions of the Skyline GT-R, NSX and of course the Supra. In fact we looked...
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Posted
Nov 01 2009, 04:00 PM
by
Jonathan Moore
with 3 comment(s)
There is a name that's synonymous with Le Mans: Jacky Ickx. The unassuming Belgian driver ruled sportscar racing in general and Le Mans in particular throughout the 1970s and 1980s, but his career effectively spanned four decades. Ickx was a multi-discipline master: one of the old school of drive anything, anywhere, anytime – fast. An all-rounder of the highest ability; Europe's equivalent of Mario Andretti. Unlike many sportscar drivers who never made their mark in Formula 1, Ickx...
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Posted
Nov 01 2009, 10:44 AM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 40 comment(s)
While researching this blog post, I didn't want to make a standard Driver Profile of Paul Vlasblom like what we've been doing with the Formula D drifters. I wanted to turn it into a Q&A type of feature with lots of pictures of his cars, build projects and driving skills instead. Paul's career got started in 1998 when he was working for a Porsche dealership and and was racing a E30. He already loved to slide the little BMW but it never occurred to him it was a real sport. He won the...
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Posted
Oct 31 2009, 10:53 AM
by
Patrick McGrath
with 8 comment(s)
There aren't too many drift dynasties around. Let alone one quite as successful as these two brothers. Born and raised in County Cork, in the south of Ireland, James (L) and Mike (R) are the most successful brothers in the European drifting world. To get a better view of this story, we need to go back to 2004, where I first saw Mike competeing in an E30 325 BMW. . Like pretty much all Irish drift stories, this one again begins at the home of Irish drifting, the Rosegreen / Tipperary International...
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Posted
Oct 30 2009, 12:35 AM
by
John Brooks
with 16 comment(s)
1968 was a year of revolution; politically, socially, culturally, even down to something as trivial as sport. Nothing was ever the same again, it was, perhaps, the End of Innocence. Politically, students and workers had taken to the streets in Paris during May nearly toppling the government. In the "Prague Spring" a Soviet satellite made a bid for freedom, bloody and brutal repression by the Russians was the final outcome. In the USA a presidential election year saw LBJ resign and Richard...
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