1st Fairlady Racer in the USA?

datsun65 · Post by **datsun65** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 1:56 pm

1st Fairlady Race Car in the USA

Back in the early days of Datsun in the US, sports cars and racing were an important marketing component to building the Datsun Marque.

Back in 1961, the first roadster was prepared and started racing in the southern california Area. Recently, I found a scan of the Pomona SCCA sports car race program from July 8/9 1961 which documents the running of an early fairlady, race car #129.

Funny thing...The driver listed acually ended up being a VP or President at Nissan!

Here are a few snapshot for the very early days...

http://tinyurl.com/8nov3

67 1/2 1600 · Post by **67 1/2 1600** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 2:00 pm

Wow I never knew they raced the SPL212s, I always thought they mostly raced the 311s.

Post by **spl310** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 3:35 pm

Isn't there more info on that at www.fairlady.org?

datsun65 · Post by **datsun65** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 5:31 pm

Unfortunately...Very little information...

The first hint that Nissan Motor Corporation in the USA were interested in American racing was back in 1962 when they allowed a mechanic at one of their West Coast Datsun dealerships a limited amount of funding to race the first Fairlady Roadster, the SPL212. This mechanic, Jean LePlant, also went on to race the 1500

Actually, as you can see in the Racing program Jean was one of two women drivesr for the car..I believe she worked at nissan, but I don't think she was a mechanic...

Post by **spl310** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 8:20 pm

You may want to contact Rob Beddington and or Phill Brooks to see if they have more scoop for you.

Victor_laury · Post by **Victor_laury** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 12:01 pm

Contact Les Cannaday. He has more history on this particular race car.