Rocketpencil uploaded another astonishing video: the 1971 Japanese Grand Prix held at Fuji International Speedway!

It consists out of three races: the Touring A (1600cc) class, Touring B (2000cc) class and the Grand Touring class, translating into Bluebird, Skyline and Fairlady Z.

All non-Nissanians will complain I over simplified it a bit. Yes there are indeed other cars (like the Mazda RX-2) but that's what the main field and winners looked like... Only later that year the Mazda RX-3s broke the winning victory streak of those menacing Skylines...

I'm not a big fan of drag racing but I can really appreciate drag racing beauties like the Laurel and Bluebirds in this video:

Apart from the 16 inch RS Watanabes this Laurel C230 doesn't look too unusual. However when it does its run within 12.299 seconds that may be called quite respectable! The Bluebird 610 manages to do a 13.201! Not bad for 30 to 35 year old J-tin!

I came across this image somewhere on images.google.com and really liked it. Nothing special or fancy about the picture, but I really liked to see all generations (and SSS models) in one single picture:

All generations of the Nissan Bluebird
I have no idea why the seventh generation is actually on top... Maybe the personal preference of the person who created the picture?

Now, maybe I should try to create one with all zokusha Bluebirds? :P

Found here:
The Bluebird Hall of Fame

Some time ago I saw an ad on Marktplaats selling a brochure Nissan 1965 without any picture with it. The description sounded good, it was fairly cheap (considering the age of it) and I contacted the seller. He didn't have any possibility to send me pictures so I took the "risk". Few days later this arrived:

Brochure Nissan 1965
It is actually a book of 50 pages and it is entirely in English. It was meant to be given away to new possible import companies and dealerships.

Brochure Nissan 1965
It shows the modernized Nissan during the early 60s: a modern car lineup, healthy figures, four modern production plants and even a test facility! Their growth is amazing during the late 50s and early 60s: between 20% and 25% growth each year!

Brochure Nissan 1965
As you can see: they have a model for almost everyone! On the front row the Fairladies on the left, the bluebird 410s in the middle and the new Silvia on the right. On the second row all the Cedrics are lined up. On the remaining rows all the utilitarian vehicles are shown.

Brochure Nissan 1965
This is the Oppama plant (追浜工場) in Yokosuka with a private pier at the Tokyo Bay and you can also see the test track on the background. The plant was considered the most modern car factory back in 1961 when it was opened and later in 1970 the first car factory to make use of robot welding. The test track is the very same as the one used in the 1960s Nissan Bluebird crashtest videos I posted some time ago.

Brochure Nissan 1965
And of course their latest product: a 1595cc two seater listening to the lovely name Silvia.

There is much much more in this book and I'm very happy I took the gamble to buy this unseen. A true gem! :)

I found these two vintage 1960s crash test videos of the Nissan Bluebird on Youtube. The first video shows the crash tests of a dummy sitting on the rear seat of a Nissan Bluebird 410 crashing at 50 km/h and 100 km/h:

Nissan Bluebird 410 crash test

Most probably these tests were done to see the impact of wearing seat belts at the rear seat at 50 and 100 km/h. As you can see the 410 two point seatbelt is pretty useless at 100 km/h: the seat belt fails due to the force of the impact and the dummy is launched and beheaded by the dashboard. Lovely slow-motion replays at the end of the video!

But believe me: even though the carnage looks bad, for that time these tiny 410s were quite safe! Compare that with these GM crash tests! But I still wouldn't want to be beheaded by my own dashboard...

The second video shows the Nissan Bluebird 510 crash test at 40 km/h, creating a chain crash a few other 410s and a (new?) 510:

This test is actually very ingeniously done: no remote operated brakes, just a plain and simple wirecutter activating the brake system! It is like watching the Mythbusters from 1968! ;)

This test shows the advantages of using both a headrest and a seat belt. In the slow-motion footage at the end you can see that the dummy in the front car stays in place even after this car gets hit three times! The headrest saves the dummy from breaking its neck, while clearly the dummy of the second car wasn't that fortunate: it hits both the windscreen and breaks its neck due to the front seat lacking a headrest.

Another thing becomes clear with this test: the 510 is a lot safer than the 410! Even though 410s receives a lot of damage on both front and rear ends while the 510 (third in row) crumples a lot more than the 410 to reduce the force of the impact.

I'm glad I'm driving a bit more modern car than these two! However, I seriously doubt a 27 year old car is considered safe according to nowadays standards...