Since the list seems awfully quiet lately I thought I might provoke some
thought on a subject I am having difficulty finding info and all the
great thinkers I have seen participating on this list may have the
answers. Now that Monterey is over and the Glen is next weekend and I
will be there helping crew for the fellow Datsun racers I have been
taking stock of my growing collection of Old Beat up historic race cars
and thinking that it is almost time to quit collecting and start
building them all. I have been lucky enough with help from my friends
Pete Brock and John Morton of the old BRE race team to collect some of
their former vehicles and some others with history as well. None of the
cars has an extremely impressive pedigree as I am sure some you think
that anything Japanese may have none at all but thats why I went with
japanese cars after having British and American I wanted something
different and Boy did I get it. Anyway I have been restoring cars for
many years and have done 2 cars for Bob Bondurant if you ever go to his
school check out his little museum.
Aside from safety issues for vintage cars how can I restore some of them
to correct raced looks without making them appear new and there is some
disparity on this issue. I have the 1969 Datsun 510 Factory right hand
drive Rallye car driven by Pete in the Baja 1000 and finished 4th but
even though it is rough I would hate to try and make it look like it
never raced Baja. Same with the 1967 Datsun 2000 Roadster that raced in
at least 4 ARRC races from 1967 to 1973 and finished as high as 2nd I
need to remove all the flares to run vintage but I wanted to anyway but
would it not be sacriligiuos to update the car and make it look really
nice I mean these cars have a patina to them but don't show well enough
to be respected for what they really are a significant part of racing
history. I have a whole bunch of vehicles that fall into the above
dilemas but they are all just different enough to want advice. Some of
the others are
1972 Ontario Motor Speedway Pace car- 240Z destroyed by Bob Bondurant
after being the pace car and was then his school car Maybe some of you
learned to drive in this car.
1970 Datsun 510- B sedan car used to be Derek McKessons car from So Cal
and went to runoffs 2-3 times in late 80s Being restored for the new
trans-am series this ones a no brainer.
1966 Hino Transporter- Maybe one of the first transporters in the US
used By Pete Brock for his early Hino Samurai race team then as the BRE
transporter for the 1968 Datsun Roadsters The 70 240Zs and the winning
Trans-am 510s for 71-72 this truck also has the distinction of having
Max Balchowsky install a Caddy engine after the little Hino diesel blew
up and boy is there some history with this one.
1968 Datsun 2000 one of the Bob Sharp salt damaged cars that also ran in
the midwest its whole life 1968-1975 went to ARRC 2-3 times with Dave
Eagleson and another midwest guy whom I have forgotten .
1967 Datsun 2000- the car described above has been a racecar since new
and have photos of it rolling off the truck at Datsun and being
delivered to Duane Fuerhelm and Dan Parkinson, then it went to Kirk
Allegro for 2 years where it finished 4th in ARRC in 72 and then went to
Rob McFarlin at FAR Performance in the bay area until 75 and was then
raced around the bay area as different cars for the next 25 years.
If any of you can offer advice as to how best make some of these cars be
correct without looking over restored I would appreciate it as I know
from your e-mails you all have some beautiful historic cars. Also if any
of you have any old Photos I am trying to get many of these back to
period correct except for safety stuff within the rules of the groups I
run with mainly HSR west.
Sorry this was so long but the list has not had any traffic so I thought
it was a good time to ask and I bet you guys never knew there were so
many famous Japanese race cars. Just kidding and thanks for any and all
help.
Les
--
Les Cannaday
Classic Datsun Motorsports
345 Olive Ave
Vista, CA 92083
(760) 940-6365
(208) 988-5507(fax)
http://www.classicdatsun.com
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