You know what, we really don’t see enough pre-hakosuka Skylines either. Here’s a Prince Skyline 2000 GT from the New Year Meeting. Would you believe these were raced against the Porsche 904? Though it swept 2nd through 6th at the 1964 Japan Grand Prix beating Japanese and British entries, it lost to the mid-engined Porsche. Which motivated a slightly more aerodynamic Prince R380 the next time around.
[Minkara]
Pretty sweet. Definitely see where the Gen3 gets its lines.
The Prince Skylines were loosing to the Belletts and Bellett GTs too. The Porsches lost more to the Belletts than they won in that time period. What was it, something like 276 outright wins by Belletts in Japanese road racing from 1966 through 1968? Why is it never the domestic competition form within Japan that is cited as Nissan’s motivation to improve the Skyline?
Teeeeeeechnically…. The First “Sporting” Skyline, was the Prince Skyline Sport. (R21A & R21B). Though even the First Generation cars were raced.
Yup, and you can watch Prince old racing footage in Best MOTORing: Racing History Vol:3. It tells the whole story (in JDM language – no subs) how Prince went from the Skyline to R380. It includes:
1964 2nd Japan Grand Prix T-V race (S50), GT-II race (S54)
1966 3rd Japan Grand Prix (digest) GP-II race (R380A-I)
1967 4th Japan Grand Prix (digest) GP Race (R380A-II)
1967 Nissan R380 Japan International Speed Record (R380A-II)
4 dr sportscars rule. !
Belletts raced against the Porsche 904 too, and beat it. They beat the Toyota 2000GTs in a couple races. Belletts got 31 outright first place finishes in 1966 and another 18 outright first place finishes in 1967. The JAF records for 1964 and 1965 are not available, but Belletts are accepted to be the dominant car in Japanese circuit racing in the mid 1960’s. So why is Porsche always credited as the motivation for Nissan to improve the Skyline, when Isuzu was cleaning both Nissan and Porsche’s clocks?
Looks a lot like the 1968 Skyline type R which I always thought looked like a Datsun 411 with the front end stretched to accomodate a 6 cylinder engine.
A fellow member of the Okinawa Sports Car Club had one of these. I also remember the Bellels and Bellettes, gorgeous cars influenced by Alfas. I used to own a Bluebird 1600 SSS.