Group A Nissan Skyline DR30 and HR31

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by KA

I think I asked the question whether the NME car was locally-developed by Howard Marsden's crew in the UK, or came from Japan.

Given the fact it went back to Japan at the end of the programme, does that suggest it definitely originated from NISMO in the first place, either as a kit of parts or a complete car, rather than being separately built and developed by NME?

Good question and I suspect that the latter description is probable?

[PZR]

Originally Posted by KA

An interesting thought comes to mind- Unless they've got a couple more tucked away somewhere, in a way it seems odd that the HR31 in the Nissan collection is the NME car, which had a pretty short racing career and was probably not widely known in Japan.

I'd have thought that one of the NISMO cars raced by Hasemi or Hoshino in the domestic series would have been a more obvious candidate for the museum collection.

Both Nissan and NISMO have a few R30s and R31s knocking around. They aren't necessarily listed in the 'Nissan Heritage Car Collection' publicity material ( not everything they own is listed there - for many reasons ), but they do exist.

If you go to an event such as the yearly NISMO Festival at Fuji Speedway ( 30th November this year ) you can usually see one or two of them on track, being driven by the people who raced them in period. Nissan exercise quite a few of their old race cars in this way - such as the unique, fascinating and wonderful-sounding NP35 - so the collection isn't a mausoleum.

Here's one of the old Hasemi Motorsport Reebok-sponsored R31s ( Hasemi himself driving ) that I snapped coming down the pitlane on the practice day for the 2005 NISMO Festival. Sorry for the useless photo!

[chunterer]

That's a really nice livery actually. I loved the GTS-R because it kind of reminded me of the 635 Bimmer. (what?? I hear you all say???)

I guess it's because the Sierra's looked spectacular but sounded fairly dull, well they did when there was over a dozen of the things bombing round and then there was the hearing assault by the angry little M3's in Class B!!

The Nissan was a refreshing change with that sweet 6 sound, kind of reminiscent of the 635 and whenever I saw it, the drivers were usually looking out of the side window coming out of a corner like Weaver used to with his BMW!!!!

I was sooooo disappointed when NME didn't go on and enter a couple in the '89 BTCC.

[banger_racer]

Not sure if ive posted these links before but you may find them of interest.

http://richardtaylor.zenfolio.com/p4...409e#h1ec3107b

and

http://richardtaylor.zenfolio.com/p4...7409e#h9a7409e

From info on website these are from a historic meeting in june 08 at Oran park.

[MYDR30]

I know I am re igniting an old thread here, but I actually own the last DR30 Gibson car that ran in the Peter Jackson colours. There were 4 of them, with as many as 3 running at the one time in any event under the numbers 15, 30 and 60. My car was the only one to ever run on radial tyres, and was the one that had the roll bar changes made. The issue was actually more with the radial tyres than with the roll bar.

Anyone who would like any more info, I would be more than happy to help out and answer any questions that I am able to.

As the Group A and C historic touring car movement gains more momentum, there will be lots more interest in the 4 DR30 Skylines that GMS ran. Out of the 4 that were run by GMS, (There were actually 6 that were looked after by GMS (Gibson Motorsport), but only 4 of them ran under the GMS banner), 1 has been written off, 1 has been beautiffuly restored and within the next 12 months will be back on the track, and 1 was modified to compete in Sports Sedans, and is currently for sale. Mine is the last, and the ONLY "As Raced" example left out of the 4. My car is currenly competing in Historic Group A and C events accross Australia.

If there is enough interest in here, I will post some more pics of the car as it is today.

This photo was taken at Phillip Island Historics in MArch this year. It was my first competitive drive in the car after a full mechanical restoration.

[KA]

Originally Posted by MYDR30

I know I am re igniting an old thread here, but I actually own the last DR30 Gibson car that ran in the Peter Jackson colours. There were 4 of them, with as many as 3 running at the one time in any event under the numbers 15, 30 and 60.

Out of the 4 that were run by GMS, (There were actually 6 that were looked after by GMS (Gibson Motorsport), but only 4 of them ran under the GMS banner), 1 has been written off, 1 has been beautiffuly restored and within the next 12 months will be back on the track, and 1 was modified to compete in Sports Sedans, and is currently for sale. Mine is the last, and the ONLY "As Raced" example left out of the 4. My car is currenly competing in Historic Group A and C events accross Australia.

If there is enough interest in here, I will post some more pics of the car as it is today.

Which were the other two that were 'looked after' by GMS? By 'looked after', do you mean they were effectively GMS customer cars, built and maintained by Gibson's outfit, but raced by other teams?

IIRC the other DR30's racing in Australia/NZ at that time were the Baigent/Bowkett Nissan NZ pair, and Murray Carter's car (pale blue 'Everlast' then black 'Netcomm').

...and Yes Please to more pics

(A thought- we had a Group A Skyline thread a couple of years back- Might be worth using this as a point to pick it up again, and sort out the history of the Gibson cars?)
http://tentenths.com/forum/showthrea...09#post2103909

[racer69]

Originally Posted by KA

IIRC the other DR30's racing in Australia/NZ at that time were the Baigent/Bowkett Nissan NZ pair, and Murray Carter's car (pale blue 'Everlast' then black 'Netcomm').

There was also the Kieron Wills DR30 that ran in a number of the Australian & NZ races in 1987

[KA]

Thanks- I'd forgotten that one. Was it an ex-Gibson car, one of Baigent's (though as I recall he continued with the DR30 into 1987, so I presume not?), or one run independently by Wills- either built by his own crew, or sourced from Japan?

There was also a plain yellow car with Hella sponsorship around 1988/9- Matt Wacker I think. IIRC was this the ex-Murray Carter car?

[chunterer]

Thanks KA i'll move the relevant posts to the main thread.

DONE!!

[brendonwood1]

Originally Posted by KA

Thanks- I'd forgotten that one. Was it an ex-Gibson car, one of Baigent's (though as I recall he continued with the DR30 into 1987, so I presume not?), or one run independently by Wills- either built by his own crew, or sourced from Japan?

There was also a plain yellow car with Hella sponsorship around 1988/9- Matt Wacker I think. IIRC was this the ex-Murray Carter car?

The Wills car was a separate car to the two Nissan NZ cars run by Kent Baigent and Graeme Bowkett. I have a vague memory that this was built from a road car.
The car run by Matt Wacker was indeed the ex-Carter car.
So, there were a total of 8 DR30 Skylines in Australia and NZ (4 x GMS, 2 x Nissan NZ, 1 x Murray Carter and 1 x Kieran Wills).

I assume that the 2 extra cars that were looked after by GMS were the two Nissan NZ cars, given that these two cars had some level of support from the Nissan dealer network in NZ and were effectively semi-works cars. Again, from memory these two cars were built from road cars. I have seen posts on the Facebook Group A page that both are owned by a collector in NZ.

[GTRMagic]

Mr Wills ran his Nissan over here a couple of times, here at Calder...

[stirlingmac]

The Wills/Henley DR30 was crashed at the Wellington Nissan Mobil 500. It was bought by a local enthusiast who at the time owned a V8 performance shop...the Skyline was fitted with a small block Chev !! As far as I know it is still in the the same ownership and unfinished.

[DAVID PATERSON]

Originally Posted by Jesper OH

Three Japanese DR30's - my guess is 1986:
http://www.geocities.jp/e34525nena/dr30.html

...and some '87 Intertec 500 pictures:
http://amagawa.hp.infoseek.co.jp/87-GroupAR5.html

...and finaly a newer picture of Matt Wackers DR30 from a more recent meeting I think:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7529046@N04/515552613/

Jesper

Unfortunately, these links are broken. Does anyone have any pics of Japanese Group A DR30s? I'd like to include them in rFactor.

[drbob]

Murray Carter DR30 rebuild

https://www.facebook.com/netcomm14

[TDO]

Great thread guys.
Owned a red & black DR30 many moons ago - loved it.
Found this link: http://racecars.minimodelshop.co.uk/...-autoart-88376

Have seen this image before but dont know much about the group 5 cars.

[Graham Clayton]

Originally Posted by racer69

In terms of Australia;

1991:

- Alf & Tim Grant carried on with the Sizzler-backed HR31 (now #6)

Here is a photo of the #6 Grant Skyline:

[flyingduck]

Originally Posted by stirlingmac

The Wills/Henley DR30 was crashed at the Wellington Nissan Mobil 500. It was bought by a local enthusiast who at the time owned a V8 performance shop...the Skyline was fitted with a small block Chev !! As far as I know it is still in the the same ownership and unfinished.

From the current owner of the Wills car (it's not me). First of all he really likes the photos of the wills car in its statesman shirts sponsorship he hadn't seen them before and he enjoyed seeing it.

the history was it was brought from a broker in auckland with no motor and box. and was setup to run in the sports sedans (as far as i know) but it was never finished it was all in primer and in a million pieces. sat there for about 17-18 years till i got it.

He has pretty much finished it and will be taking it on the track soon. I need to figure how to upload a photo as I have a couple of it in it's present state.