Originally Posted by
tsillay
Hi All.
Here's what I think I know about the Datsun shellsport cars.! Please correct me where my memory has failed, or I'm just plain wrong.
The Schick Cherry and the Schick 1200 coupe (sunny) were Nissan Motorsport cars, managed (and possibly owned and imported) by Mark Petch.
Reg Cook and Grant Aitken drove the cars, Grant had a major at Pukekohe in the sunny and the car was destroyed. CMR built the new very radical 1200, to complete the season, which eventually went to Tony Marsh and won the champs in Sulco colours.
From memory, Tony said the car weighed in at under 580kgs, and made 101 ft/lb torque from that little pushrod!
This car had the cut and shut through the door sills to allow the extremely low ride height. It resurfaced in the early days of SS2000, running in dark green with yellow flares and a strong 1500.
The car is alive and well and living in Auckland.
The Cherry went to Dave Brown who is sadly no longer with us. Anecdotaly, Dave made mention after reshelling the car that the Nismo shell was different to the roadcar shell in a number of very subtle ways!
Grant Aitken went on to build the two 120Y coupes, with 1600cc L series OHC power. John Billington ran one in CoolWool GT before he went GrpA Commodore. These both re-appeared in SS2000, with the Steve Gill machine now sporting 2 litre power. The 1600 car went on to Alvin Watson and I now suspect is the machine Grant has back.
I'm not sure if Steve Emson's 1200 coupe started life as a Shellsport car or as a production race car. After some years campaigned by Steve it was sold to Rex Findlay and became the Findlays Bakeries car. Then sold to Glen Jones and painted black where it picked up the Group5 aero grill. Somewhere along the way it assimilated a pure magic 1300 pushrod engine, I'd love to know if this was the Nismo engine from the early Shick 1200!
Glen sold to Brian Roycroft who used it to good effect in the Auckland club scene and went on to win the first years of SS2000, painted red with white/blue tail.
It lost the aero grill in an accident over the hill at puke, the 1300 eventually cried enough and Brian rebuilt the car in white with 944 porsche style flares and 1600cc.
When Brian sold to concentrate on the Aztec cars, the car vanished for a while, then turned up looking rather ratty in white with green universal flares in the hands of Brent, the current president of SS2000 around 2003. He's now sold it on, I dont know if he really knew what a piece of history that car was. I'd love to know where it is now.
Steven Gillards 1200 coupe became the second of the Orano Orange juice / Aztec corn chips cars campaigned in SS2000. The lead Aztec car I first saw running CoolWool GT in the hands of John Billington, white with black flares, before JB got the Aitken 120Y. I'm not sure of it's Shellsport providence. Both Aztec cars are alive and well.
There are other 1200's, eg, the Barry Bould car, of which I only know post shellsport history.
Phew, that was a bit of a diatribe! I should start an early SS2000 thread and post photos.
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