1969 Japan Grand Prix

[bry3500]

This was one of the most notable races in the history of the Japanese Grand Prix. In 1968 Toyota had tried to race with the brand new Toyota 7 in the Group 7 race and they failed: they ended up behind Nissan’s R381 and the Porsche 907 due to technical problems. In 1969 they were back with the improved Toyota 7: new aerodynamics and a new intake and exhaust system
But Nissan and Porsche did also improve their cars: Nissan had the Prince GRX3 V12 powered R382 ready for the race. This marked the final between the Prince and Nissan merger. Also Porsche attended with the new 917 featuring a 4.5 liter 12 cylinder boxer. The Toyota 7s had a very good start and passed the Nissans at the start, but so did the Porsche 917

The Porsche proved not to be any competition at all: they were very powerful but lacked stability in tight corners and reliability. Also one by one the Toyota 7s lost ground to the m Nissan R382 ..
s

[bry3500]

[bry3500]

Nissan R382
Toyota 7

[bry3500]

[bry3500]

[bry3500]

[bry3500]

And the 1968 Race

[bry3500]

[105angria]

turning Japanese Billy ?,Its putting that Honda engine in the Rover!

[bry3500]

... well at least the Honda doesn't drip oil all over my driveway Angria...

[Steve Holmes]

Wow, that footage is just awesome! Especially the 1969 race. I knew Japan was big into Group 7 sports car racing, but those grids from both years exceeded 30 cars! I actually built a scale model of one of those 1968 Nissans. The rear wings on those cars were made up of two flippers, connected by a rod in the middle and attached to the rear hubs, and each flipper would act independently of the other, depending on what the rear suspension was doing. You can see them working in that footage. Really nice looking cars. I assume as the rear wings were gone in 1969 they'd been outlawed by the FIA who banned suspension mounted wings after several failures in F1.

Interestingly, Shelby and Penske sent their McLaren M6B Can-Am cars to Japan in late 1968 to race, with Peter Revson and Mark Donohue driving. They were much faster than the local machines, as you'd expect, and their teams had organised for them to put on a high speed demonstration at the front to add more interest. Revson won the race after Donohue began having fuel pick-up problems.

[jamie]

Yo BRY what AWSOM clips OLD SID would have been left in the DUST Jamie

[bry3500]

The Japs would heve copied SID I reckon Jamie!!

[bry3500]

The Nissan is a great looking car Steve - didn't know anyone made a kit of it back then - Tamiya? Hasegawa?
Couple of good pics here
Interesting re: Donahue and Revson

[Steve Holmes]

Thanks Bry, yeah I think it could have been Tamya, but I couldn't say for sure. Its probably still at my folks place somewhere. I bought and built two similar models. One was the Nissan, the other was the John Surtees 1968 Lola T160 Can-Am car. They were both older kits, in that they were probably originally created around when these cars were new, or near new, even though I bought them probably 20 years later, at least. They were a strange scale too, something like 1:20 from memory.

[Steve Holmes]

Sorry, I guess it wasn't a strange scale after, its 1:18! Must have just seemed strange at the time because all the models I'd previously built were 1:24 or 1:25.



Heres the Lola:

[bry3500]

Thanks Steve - I never seen that Nissan as a Tamiya kit - wonder how effective those flippers were ?
The last Tamiya kits I bought are still unopened - The entire collection Of MP4 Macca's and Lotuses Ayrton drove
One rainy day!

[Steve Holmes]

Yeah it was a slightly more basic kit than some of the others I was building at the time which made me think it might have been an older kit that had been re-released. I think they did a McLaren M8A as well. I had just finished building a couple of Corvette Grand Sport kitsets from Accurate Minatures, and they were really challenging and highly detailed kitsets by comparison.