Hi all,

Some of you may know that I was in Japan last week, and attended a couple of events while I was there.

The most exciting of these ( for my part ) was being allowed to see Nissan's large store of more than 400 old cars at their now-closed production facility in Zama, near Yokohama.

Its always been frustrating to know that almost all the other Japanese car manufacturers have their own museums in Japan, but that Nissan were lagging behind and had no concrete plans to put a proper museum together, despite using references to the company history and 'DNA' of their product whilst advertising and selling new cars. This was especially frustrating in the knowledge that Nissan have for many years held a vast store of old pre-production, show, concept, landmark models and old race cars.

I have been trying to get to see these cars ( and one or two of them in particular ) for roughly the last 14 years - even while I lived in Japan in fact - but Nissan does not open the doors of this store to the general public and it is pretty much an 'invitation only' situation.

As part Nissan's "70-year anniversary celebrations", May 2003 has been marked by some special events in Japan. Some of Nissan's collection of old race cars were put on display at the company HQ in Ginza, Tokyo. These looked fantastic, and drew large crowds of office workers from nearby buildings at lunchtime ( making it hard to get a clear photo opportunity! ). There was also a small display to mark the retirement of Factory race driver Kazuyoshi Hoshino, and a series of films in a temporary theatre setup.

Throughout May, Nissan have also been inviting selected Nissan-related car clubs to view the contents of the storage warehouse at Zama. My chance to see the contents finally came when CLUB S30 were invited to visit on the morning of Sunday 18th May, and as a member I was finally allowed access to this holy shrine of Nissan history.

There had to be a catch, and sure enough here it was. Basically, only two hours max for the visit and no electrics in the building ( natural light only - as the electric is currently disconnected to the warehouse while redevelopment takes place! ). This made taking photos very difficult indeed, as only gaps in the clouds made enough light flood through the skylights - and the gaps were few and far between. This was going to be a big test for my little Nikon digital, its small flash and its limited battery power.

To be honest, I could have spent the whole two hours on just ONE car ( guess which one that was? ) but the place was chock FULL of interesting stuff and I tried to take in as much as possible. There's no knowing when I'll be allowed back.................

The good news is that I finally heard official confirmation of a rumour that had been circulating amongst interested parties; Nissan are currently putting plans together for a PROPER heritage museum - so we will be able to have a place to make a pilgrimage to after all. More news on this as and when it comes...........

For those that share an interest in this kind of thing, please take a look at a few pics that I've posted in the Members Gallery section. There are a mixture of pics from the Ginza, Tokyo HQ exhibition and the inside of the storage warehouse at Zama.

Link to my gallery:

http://www.classiczcars.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=2116&thumb=1

If anyone has any specific questions, I'd be pleased to answer them if I can ( just post questions on this thread ).

Hope that you enjoy them.

All the best,

Alan T.

It's great to see that vehicles from events such as the Mobilgas Trial & East-African Safari are still in one piece. And also some of the lesser-known cars (in Australia), like the European works 240-RS which I saw in there (go the FJ24!).

Was the East African #10 car there? (I got the navigator, Lofty Drews, to autograph my Brian Long Z book a few years back).

I demand to be told the next time you're going to Japan on one of the Nissan-Junkets. I'll be on a plane so fast.....

Big thanks to everybody who has made positive comments. Its nice to know that others share my enthusiasm for warehouses full of dusty old cars.

Mike, I will have a look at the options for making Albums in my Gallery pics section - but I'm pretty slow when it comes to anything computer-related and it might take me a while to get to grips with it and use it properly. Many thanks for making a front-page feature of the original post. I should have written a proper 'report' on the visit to do it justice really .............

Fred, I did indeed go to Heaven ( for just two hours ) but it was Hell having to try to focus on the particular cars that I needed to research ( especially the 73 Safari Rally winner ) as it made everything else such a blur. I've had a deep interest in Nissan and Prince circuit race cars for a long time too, but could not spare the time to look at them all that closely this time. I also have fond memories of seeing ( and hearing and smelling ) the Works Group C and Group A machines back when they were current. Very strange to see them dormant and covered in plastic sheeting - but I'm SO glad that Nissan have preserved some of them.

Cuong, I think the REAL heroes are the cars themselves and the people that designed / productionised / raced them etc. I'm just an innocent bystander waving a flag and cheering them on.

V12horse, sorry no XANAVI R34 pics ( but it too might have been in there for all I know ). When I was looking at my pics afterwards I spotted one of the Le Mans GT-R LM cars in the background - but never even noticed it while I was there. That's how much of an overload it was to be in that place.............

Ben, glad you share the sentiments about the old warhorses. Hopefully a lot of this stuff is going to get displayed on a rotational basis ( they could not put it all on display at once ) at Nissan's projected new museum. This will give us somewhere to make a pilgrimage to. Up until now I've been grumbling about the company having no focal point for its heritage - but it seems we might finally be getting our Mecca after all...........

Not sure which car you mean when you say the "No.10" E.A. Safari car. The 73 winner was crewed by Shekhar Mehta and Lofty Drews and was numbered "1" in the race. I think this one might be the one you mean. Here's a special pic for you:

All the best,

Alan T.

Originally posted by Zedrally

Alan, It's all fantastic, I haven't had a chance to go thru' the gallery but did you see the 73 2+2 with the G-nose there?

Sorry Mike, didn't see it there. I think we sniffed out all the Z cars in there on the day ( leaving a lot of other stuff un-worshipped ). I strongly suspect that the 73 Tokyo Motor Show GS30 with the G-nose no longer exists. It probably got used / sold and died a natural death eventually, like so many of the other show-stand cars. There were a few other S30-series Z cars in the warehouse, though. One of them was a very clean 432, which I just fired a shot of as I walked past it. Now I want to go back again.

I asked a few questions about metal G-noses to the experts in Club S30, and was told that I must be eating too much cheese before going to bed. Sorry to say that your theory of their possible existence got short shrift from the boys 'in the know'. So far, I don't have to eat my hat.

Aren't those 1958 Mobil Gas Trial Bluebirds little sweeties? I must be getting old and paternalistic..............

Alan T.

Is the color on that 432 safari brown? It was called something or other like that when I saw one on the Japanese yahoo auctions with that color. I was not sure if it was a standard color becuase I never saw one in that color. Is it standard?

That is an awesome car.

Thanks a lot.

-Ben

Who's up for a world-wide ClassicZcars meet in Japan when the museum opens ? ????

Alan, do you know WHY they only let you in for a measly 2 hours? I mean, it's not like they'll break if you look at them too long?

Originally posted by v12horse

Is the color on that 432 safari brown? I was not sure if it was a standard color becuase I never saw one in that color. Is it standard?Ben

Hi Ben,

Yes - they call it 'Safari Brown' in Japan. The rest of us know it as 'Gold', and the colour code was 920.

It was seen as a very demode colour back in the late Sixties and early Seventies, and a lot of Nissan cars were chosen in that colour in Japan. My 432R replica project is in this colour, mainly because its now anti-fashion and a bit of an underdog of a colour.

Like a lot of these early Nissan shades, it looks different under different lighting conditions and its difficult to take a photo that captures the colour as it is in real sight / light. It also seems to get darker as it gets older.

By the way, they had a good nickname for it in Japan back in the early Seventies - "Baby S***t Brown".

Nice.

Alan T.

Originally posted by HS30-H

Aren't those 1958 Mobil Gas Trial Bluebirds little sweeties? I must be getting old and paternalistic..............

Alan T.

Alan, after I saw those photo's and realised that they still exist [i believe Mr K drove one], what a wonderful idea it would be to stage an re-enactment of the '58 trial.

Just in case you're wondering the 1953 Redex Round Australia Trial is being re-run this year [July]. It has attracted many of the original competiors and the odd car.

Wouldn't it be great to se Mr K, driving the Bluebird again in a re-run!

I'm lucky to have put my hand up and hope to join in the Melbourne to Albury section. Will take camera and try to share the memories.

That's the one (it was late & I was suffering a sensory overload too!!).

Thanks Alan, I'll pass that photo onto some of the guys around here that also know him.

Originally posted by Alfadog

Alan, do you know WHY they only let you in for a measly 2 hours? I mean, it's not like they'll break if you look at them too long?

They were trying to minimise the amount of souvenirs we were taking.

No, actually we were kind of lucky to get in at all. Basically this was free time donated by the staff ( on a Sunday morning ) out of the kindness of their hearts. They had another club coming in after us ( it was the SP / SR Owners Club ) and so we got wheeled out and they got wheeled in.

They made a big fuss about us meeting up in the carpark areas first, and then making the drive over to the warehouse ( about 1km ) in groups of five or six cars at a time. We then got marshalled into chosen parking spots and had a pep talk about who was who and what was what, and what it was all in aid of ( Nissan's birthday, basically ). Cars that did not conform to type - remember that this was a Club S30 outing - were banished to the far side of the carpark. The staff who attended us are all big enthusiasts and obviously took great pride and satisfaction from showing us around. If we wanted to see a particular car in any detail they would come and take the covers off and try to locate keys to open doors etc. They were really helpful and very very kind and patient. I could have spent all day just talking to these guys, let alone looking at the cars. All of them were owners of old Nissan / Datsun product.

I think that there are big issues with insurance and suchlike when letting people onto company premises. Especially when the Zama plant is technically being run down and redeveloped. Its a time of big flux there, and over the last couple of years it wasn't at all clear whether Carlos the Jackal and his boys would be pulling the plug altogether and the collection would be dispersed or worse. The fact that they were letting CLUBS in to see the stuff ( they have been doing this occasionally over the last few years - but pretty much JUST for organised enthusiast clubs ) probably covers them in certain respects. This kind of thing is a very serious issue for Japanese companies.

What with having only two hours and not much light ( it was VERY dark when we first went in there - but the sun came out for the last half hour and shone through the skylights ) it was pretty much impossible to see everything even once. That's why I took photos of cars that still had the dust sheets on them. I kind of didn't want to disturb their sleep unless I was going to pop off more than one shot on them.

My main focus was to get detail shots and as many mental notes as possible on the 1973 Safari winning Z. I had not seen this car in the flesh before, although I knew that Nissan still had it and were shy about showing it to people. The 71 Safari winner and the Aaltonen-driven 1972 Monte Carlo car I had seen twice before and these two have been seeing the outside world relatively frequently since the launch of the Z33. It was the 73 car that I shot more than 300 frames of - getting in as many hidden places as possible for research purposes.

All too soon they called us outside, and the SP / SR OC had already arrived. A small group of us then headed off to the Tokyo Nostalgic Car Fair, which was not much to write home about ( its turned into a carpark for old car dealers to sell their wares from ).

Maybe having more time would have been a mixed blessing. I'll be much better off thinking it all through properly and then going back some time for a second bite. When you don't know what you are going to see its hard to make a plan. Now I know roughly what to expect I can probably make more use of the experience.

Hopefully I won't have to wait another 13 years to get in there again.................

Alan T.

Well done Alan, you are a true enthusiast.

Thks for sharing your journey into the racing world of Datsun. Hope that all those cars will not end up in Carlos recycle bin. It would be a tragic day for all Datsun enthusiast around the world.

Originally posted by HS30-H

By the way, they had a good nickname for it in Japan back in the early Seventies - "Baby S***t Brown".

Nice.

Alan T.

In Australia it's commonly known as

Baby Poo Brown

Alan,

Many thanks for fabulous pictures. It’s unbelievable this is standing in a fabric!! Nissan must be shamed to put her cars in this situation.