Nick H

The wheels are Minilites, Gavin. 16" x 12" split rims for the slicks and the original, non split rim, 15" x 10" magnesium Minilites have the wets on. Unfortunately Minilite do not make the split rims any more. nick

Yes he had the operation late last year. There is a group trying to get him racing with an adapted car at the Goodwood Revival Festival in September this year. Let's hope they are successful. Nick

No..its a full cage and steel. Aluminium ones are not accepted for some racing over here. The works cars were also steel but really only a roll hoop with rear stays and fixings attached for the two spare wheels. Nick

All works rally Z's were known to be front heavy and it took a good driver to get the back out on a stage. Mehta wrecked rather a lot of them; no doubt because of the understeer. As to weight balance and ratio's Big Sam, which is now a lightweight racer, weighs 912 kgs (2010lbs) and the balance is 49.5:50.5% (back to front). Even though it is an ex works car and has a heavily reinforced shell and Sam's engine is further back than norml, together with the fibreglass front wings I am surprised to see some of the ratios quoted here. We always set up Sam on 4 corner weight guages connected to a pc. Regards Nick Howell

There is an engine shot photo in "my gallery" but it is not too close. I will try and get some of my old pictures scanned in ...sometime. Engine wise I'm not going to say too much; pistons are Cosworth, crank was specially made from a solid billet; block was modified and head not ported out too much. Carbs are Dellortos'. (very useful that was!) Nick

Halz, Another point; both Win Percy and Tony Dron--another excellent driver--want to take Sam up the hill at Goodwood. They think the handling will put a lot of cars to shame. When Tony raced Sam at Silverstone a few years ago he came in after practice and told me that he thought Sam was "one of the best handling cars that I've ever driven". Compliments indeed from another ex Le Mans driver. He also said it was as good as the works 944 Porsche; and better than the later non works 944 racers. I have been lucky enough to be invited twice to the Goodwood Festival of Speed, both times in an old 1918 Brooklands racer that I had, and restored, called the Straker Squire. A lovely 4 litre, six cylinder, racer that was painted in a black and white zig zag colour scheme. I do tend to like straight sixes; the works Healey was the same of course. At the moment early Japanese cars are not quite recognised enough to get an invitation but time will tell. Nick H

Well Halz Sam's motor is still 2400cc and it was built by Tim (Jingers) Riley who now lives and works in New Zealand. He is one of the best 240Z builders and tuners around and was responsible for maintaing the top four 240z's of the Historic Sports Car Club race series over here in the UK. As to the history of Sam there are a number of articles which have been written over the years that, with the latest research and information, are shown to be patently incorrect. The first "Big Sam" was an early works rally car registered and known a "696", from its Japanese number plate. Rob Grant had been racing it in South Africa as a Group 4 sports car. When Bob Gathercole bought it it came with a load of works rally spares but was essentially now a race car and they prepared it for the 1974 Modsports series. Win wrote it off at Bottom bend at Brands Hatch (uk) during the '74 modsports championship, during practise. He was tussling with a Morgan around Paddock, hit oil and went off going down to Bottom Bend; Sam ended up hitting the bank, backwards hard, rising up and settling down astride the bank, effectively T boning the car as well. Date was 11th August 1974 and Win had been doing 55sec laps, which is pretty impressive. Next race was 26th April at Castle Coombe. Bob Gathercole, who was the race promotor and owned Sam, approached Datsun UK and after pleading with them about how well they were doing for Datsun's name in the UK (to little interest) he bought another ex works shell, which is what the existing Big Sam is. Incredibably Gathercole's team manged to rebuild Sam into the "new" shell in time for the next race at Castle Coombe on 26th August, 15 days later. Though still unpainted-- the photos show the repairs and filler mixed with the original rally paint--Win managed 4th in practise with a time of 1min 7.8secs against Nick Faure's Porsche at 1min 9.4secs. The rest of the series was a battle with Sam hitting the headlines of the motoring press many times and the public liked the fact that the "underdogs" with their £4000 Datsun were beating Porsche with their £14,000 Carrera. Win won the series and the rest is history. When I bought the car in the early '90's we stripped it out and set it up on the jig at Fran Tuthill's workshop. The front off side chassis leg was 1.75" out of true! Win had been racing a bent car all that time. Needless to say we straightened it but all the other rallying "scars" have been retained as have the not quite fitting fibre glass wings and the works doors, tailgate, perspex etc. As to which rally's Sam, as the original works rally car, was involved in, the research continues. Alan Thomas has been a great help and so far we have established that between being built in Japan in June 1972 and rallying in the UK in late '73 it went back to Japan for a complete rebuild. (a suspension turret has been stamped with Japanese letters). I have been looking at the works cars that entered the Sothern Cross rally in Australia in October 1972 and 3 so any info you have on these rally's would be uselfull. In time we should be able to work out most of the events that the car has been in. Whatever comes out it will have been fun establishing how Big Sam has been perhaps the longest raced and rallied Works Datsun 240Z. Regards Nick Howell

Hi Gavin, Yes that's the same Win. A very talented driver whose career took off when he won the 1974 Blue Circle Modsports Championship in Big Sam against heavy opposition--like Nick Faure with a works sponsored Porsche 911 Carrera. After that Toyota, Jaguar and others hired Win and he competed at Le Mans and the World Sportscar Chapionships. He was still a very competative driver up until his operation being asked to drive many different cars from Sam to D type Jaguars. Nick

What did people want to know about Big Sam? As a race car it is obviously updated and tuned from time to time so a lot of "published"data is old and no longer relevent. At the moment Sam is sitting in my garage doing....nothing. Last time out was last year in a couple of local sprints here in Cornwall. Tifle embarrasing as the car is not set up for bumpy tamac, cracked concrete and occasional grass but it was a fun couple of days and there were many compliments about how magificent it sounded, how good it looked and gosh ..is it the real Sam etc etc. Absolutley no comments about the driver's (lack of) skills, which is perhaps a good thing. The main advantage that Sam has had over its, often more powerful, rivals has been its handling. As an ex-works car it has a very stiff bodyshell and further stiffening, together with some careful suspension tuning it has a very balanced---within 300gms--- set up when a 12 stone driver is aboard. It is all about handling and brakes; and a good driver of course. I'm not particularly good--eight seconds a lap down on Win Percy who was marvellous and SO pleased about being in Sam again and so complimentary about the handling."Nothing like it used to be" he said! It is tragic that the back operation that he had last year has paralysed him. He may get back racing again but I doubt that it will be in Sam. Nick Howell