With just 1 week to go before the 2018 Classic Motorsports Mitty April 27-29, ZCG has been preparing several Datsun race cars. We are very excited to participate in this event as it celebrates Nissan’s racing heritage. Make sure to view the race schedule to catch all of the Datsun/Nissan action and activities in the paddock! Here is the roll call for your West Coast vintage Datsun racers making the trip to Road Atlanta in Georgia.

Introducing SORABIRD

Alex McDowell is racing his Bluebird SSS Coupe for the first time since it arrived at Z Car Garage after winning from our friends at Bring A Trailer. Unfortunately, the Bluebird was never raced for several years under previous owner Adam Carolla’s ownership. This will change in 1 week!

While retaining the two-tone color scheme of the Bluebird we changed it from orange to our favorite color Sora (“Sky” in Japanese) Blue. This is a factory paint color from the beloved ZCG Datsun 2000 Roadster:

 

  

Jim Froula of Racecraft built and raced this Bluebird throughout the PNW with SOVREN so it is excellently prepared. We dyno tuned the Rebello L18 sporting twin 50mm Mikuni carbs and it is ready to rock! More information and pictures on the Bluebird can be found HERE.

The Hakosuka Skyline

Alex is also racing is 1971 Nissan Skyline. The L-series powered Hako received extensive dyno tuning and some chassis upgrades. Catch Alex piloting the Hako in group 5 Big Bore Production with  Boss 302s and 911 RSRs!

The VIPS Datsun 240z

Our friend Glenn Chiou will be racing his Loren St. Lawrence 240z.  Coming off a stellar performance at the
2017 RMMR Glenn will be back and faster than ever after some dyno tuning at ZCG.

All three cars can be seen on the dyno demonstrating their L-series power in this video, enjoy!

The Frellsen B-Sedan Datsun 510

 

Avid Datsun racer Dave Stone will be running his Frellsen 510 in the highly competitive B-sedan field. All of the car featured above will be joining  Jim Froula’s 73 Datsun 260Z  on board the RacecraftNW race-transporter for the journey to The Mitty!

ZCG will be ready to support all of our customer race cars:

The Rock Vest Datsun Roadster

Michael Anderson’s recently acquired Rock Vest 2000 is already on the way to The Mitty! We are stoked to see this historically significant roadster brought back to life winning at the race track!

 

The BRE Datsun 240z driven by John Morton at The Mitty

We are extremely thankful and stoked that owner Randy Jaffe invited us to The Mitty. John Morton is Grand Marshall of the event AND he is piloting the #46 BRE 240z once again! The entire ZCG crew will be running pit crew beginning 4/23 for testing through the race weekend ending 4/2. Following the 2017 Historics, we performed post-race maintenance to prepare #46 before sending it off to Atlanta:

For all Datsuns particiapting in the race you can view the entire Race Entry List.

We have more pictures in the gallery to enjoy. See you at the track!

Thank you to RacecraftNW and  Remy for the photos!
…[read more]

It’s official! ZCG is going to the 2018 Classic Motorsports Mitty April 27-29 at Road Atlanta in Georgia. This year, Nissan is the featured marque!

 

Road Atlanta has been home to The Mitty event for over 30 years where Datsuns dominated the racing scene. Names like Bob Sharp, Walter Maas, Jim Fitzgerald, Kirk Allegro, Don Devandorf and of course our hero John Morton have all won at this historic race track. RA was also the location of this epic Datsun commercial with John:

The BRE Datsun 240z driven by John Morton at The Mitty

We are extremely thankful and stoked that owner Randy Jaffe invited us to The Mitty. John Morton will be piloting the #46 BRE 240z once again! The entire ZCG crew will be running pit crew beginning 4/23 for testing through the race weekend ending 4/29. Somebody pinch us, we are running pit crew again for #46 with John Morton…our last race event with the legendary driver was the 2017 Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Laguna Seca. Following the Historics, we performed post-race maintenance to prepare #46 for its trip back home to Randy in Georgia.

  

  

He showed the Z at several shows including ZCon 2017 and Atlanta Festival of Speed and now it’s time for it to be on the track again with Morton at the reigns!

Our tent will be in the paddock alongside Nissan and their fleet of historic race cars! Please stop by and say hello, we will have refreshments and love chatting about Datsuns.

 

Datsun Racers Making the Trip

Sweet historic Datsuns/Nissans will be racing at The Mitty. We will be transporting the Jim Fitzgerald “Designated Hitter” car (full story in a future post) and Bluebird Coupe with help from the good folks at RacecraftNW:

 

We are very happy for our friend and fellow racer Glenn Chiou. He is making the trek to Road Atlanta to race his VIP’s Z:

We also hear that a large contingent of West Coast Datsun Roadsters will be attending: Bob Studdard ’67 2000 (owned by Phil Mendelovitz), Ron Carter’s ’67 2000 and Michael Anderson’s recently acquired Rock Vest 2000:

Bring Out Your Nissan/Datsun!

This year the Classic Motorsports Mitty is showcasing Nissan as the featured marque. That means the track and infield will be bustling with historic examples. Bring yours out and enjoy the weekend at Road Atlanta. We were impressed with the showing of Datsuns back in 2010:

 

Speaking of history at Road Atlanta, when we spotted this blue KA24E-powered Datsun 510, Rob recalled an inspiring story about its creator, the late Tom Wyatt III (Turbo Tom).

Tom entered his turbocharged L-series Datsun 510 at The Mitty where he consistently outpaced much more powerful sports cars. By the end of the day he was racing with the Corvettes and Cobras. He beat a Porsche 930 on a lap by nine seconds, and a race prepped 427 Cobra by 3 seconds. The race staff didn’t know what to do, so they gave him a custom made trophy and told him not to come back next year!  That is how you DO IT IN A DATSUN!

See you at The MITTY!

The Bluebird racecar has arrived and it is safe and sound at Z Car Garage! Customer Alex M recently won this car at auction with our friends from Bring A Trailer. Jim Froula of Racecraft built and raced this Bluebird throughout the PNW with SOVREN and we have fond memories of watching it in action at Laguna Seca:

Unfortunately, the Bluebird was never driven or raced for several years under previous owner Adam Carolla’s ownership. We will change that. This Datsun deserves to be driven in anger! Alex will be campaigning the car in the B-sedan series with CSRG.  This is a ultra-competitive vintage racing group with talented drivers like our buddy Glenn Chiou, who will be running his B-sedan 510!

 

The Bluebird is already well-sorted coming from Jim Froula. You can see a few pics of the restoration here:
HERE.

 

We can’t stop staring at that paint scheme and sloping roofline:

The Rebello L18 sports twin 50mm Mikunis backed by a T5 transmission.

Listen to the L-series symphony in the video clip below!

We have more pictures in the gallery to enjoy. See you at the track!
…[read more]