![]() Yutaka Katayama got stuck into making a success of his new position and both assessed the car buying aspirations of Americans and made sure he understood the technological and expertise base Nissan/Datsun had, including that acquired when they purchased Prince Motors and the foundation work done by Dr. Nissan’s senior management were actually not particularly pleased that Yutaka Katayama had achieved such a notable success and so to “reward” him they sent him to Los Angeles in the United States in 1960 to do “market research” and work on establishing Nissan/Datsun in the US market in all likelihood fully expecting him to fail. The two under-powered Datsun 210’s performed admirably gaining a first and fourth in class, and they finished the event while many others did not. It was an event that attracted huge publicity and in past years had featured a few larger than life characters such as “Gelignite Jack” Murray, who had a penchant for using a stick of gelignite as a fire-cracker when starting a new stage of an event. Yutaka Katayama had correctly assessed this event as being an endurance trial with the primary aim being to finish the course. Nissan had been somewhat reluctantly drawn into motorsport in 1958 when executive Yutaka Katayama had persuaded the company to compete in the 10,100 mile Mobilgas Rally in Australia. Sakuri was a visionary and he remained at Nissan to continue development work particularly focused on racing. Sakuri and his engineers passed to Nissan – this included the engine technology that would find its way into the Datsun 510 and the 240Z.ĭr. It would be the last time his cars would race under the Prince name however as Prince Motors was bought by Nissan and all the technology developed by Dr. In 1966 he achieved what he had aimed for with his cars obtaining first, second, and fourth places in the Japanese Grand Prix. Sakuri had his sights firmly fixed on victory in motorsport, and he sank Japanese-style deep thinking and analysis into his company’s efforts to achieve that success. ![]() Sakuri of Prince Motors in the wake of defeat by a privately entered Porsche in the Japanese Grand Prix of that year.ĭr. The story of the Datsun 240Z begins on the race track, and it dates back to 1964 when the Prince Motoring Club was established by Dr. K the Datsun 240Z and the First of the “Z” Cars ![]()
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