Vehicle Description
By the late 1960s European and American car manufacturers had
established a near strangle-hold on the global sports car market.
To address this dominance, Nissan developed their Z-car range with
the first of the series, the Nissan Fairlady-Z, or as the export
version was known the Datsun 240Z, being introduced in late 1969.
Combining good looks, and powerful performance, almost 150,000
units had been sold to the US alone by the time it was superseded
(by the 260Z) in 1974 and it had become the world's largest selling
sports car.
To capitalise on its promising performance and make further inroads
into the sports car market, Nissan unsurprisingly entered a small
team of specially modified works cars into a number of
International rallies, most notably in 1973 when Shekhar Mehta and
Lofty Drews took victory in the East African Safari Rally.
Inspired by these performances, a number of private individuals
recognised the latent potential in the 240Z and started to explore
how they might be further developed. One of the more professional
companies to undertake this work was the Samuri Motor Company,
founded by Bob Gathercole and Spike Anderson, who went on to build
around 74 examples of their uprated road going 240's which they
called the Super Samuri (a deliberate miss-spelling as the Super
Samurai name had already been copyrighted). �Not satisfied with
building upgrades for road cars, in 1974 Gathercole and Anderson
decided to develop a sports racing version of the Super Samuri,
which would be built to Group 4 specification and entered into the
3 Litre class of the Blue Circle Modsports Championship.
The donor car they began with was a highly significant example in
its own right being the ex-works 1970 RAC Rally car driven by Rauno
Aaltonen. Gathercole and Anderson acquired this example with less
than three weeks to go before their first race entry and so had
their work cut out to get it ready for action. The car's racing
design was typical of the era with flared front and rear wings to
cover enlarged Minilites, a deep front air dam and a rear spoiler.
It also featured extensive use of perspex for the windows and
fiberglass, which was used for the bonnet, doors and tailgate. The
car, which had by now acquired the nickname Big Sam, was finished
in the Samuri colours of Flame red and Rootes Tango metallic with
White outlining.
Because of the tight timeframe before the first race the suspension
and brakes received the majority of the mechanical work with the
engine left largely in its original rally specification. In
hindsight this was a mistake as the car blew a gasket in practice
and the first race, at Silverstone in March, was actually run with
Anderson's road car acting as a substitute. In spite of this
set-back the day turned out to be a success with the team's driver,
newcomer Win Percy, coming home first in class. At Croft, 24 hours
later, Big Sam had a new gasket fitted and was soon showing its
pace, moving quickly up the field into second position but sadly it
was not to last and the car retired a few laps later with a broken
rear main engine bearing. �This was a far from ideal start to the
season but the team soldiered on, building a new engine from
assorted spares. The new unit had a much modified rear bearing,
modified big-valve head and triple webers and showed a significant
increase in power over the old rally spec engine. It performed well
lasting until mid-season when it too expired at Llandow. By this
stage Big Sam was proving to be something of an irritation to the
Porsche Carreras, in spite of the 400cc the Datsun was giving away,
and a real fight was on for the Championship. Following Llandow,
Gathercole was fortunate to acquire another competition engine from
fellow racer Bob Grant, which was rebuilt to incorporate all the
learnings from the previous engine failures. This new unit had
another big-valve head, triple 45DCOE webers, a one-off Gordon
Allen crank, Carello Rods and 11:1 compression pistons from
America. In this new form the engine produced 250 bhp and was good
for 8000rpm, which was enough to take on the Porsches and the
Championship points grew with almost every outing as Percy and Big
Sam showed their true potential. Progress continued in this way
until Brands Hatch on August 11th. Percy was pushing hard when he
hit a patch of oil going into Bottom Bend. In the ensuing crash Big
Sam's shell was severely twisted and although Percy was relatively
unharmed, the Datsun required a complete rebuild. With just over
two weeks until the next race a fast fix was needed and the answer
lay in another ex-works shell that Gathercole managed to acquire
through Datsun UK. This particular car had been rallied by Shekhar
Mehta in 1973. It is believed to have been used as a high speed
recce and backup car on the Monte Carlo Rally as well as being
loaned by the works to the Old Woking team for the Burmagh Rally in
Scotland where it suffered a minor accident. It is not known for
certain whether this shell was the same one used by Mehta on the
Safari Rally but it is certainly possible. In any event it was this
unit that was used to rebuild Big Sam with the bare shell being
taken straight to the Samuri workshops and straightened up as far
as possible within the limited time available. The ex-Aaltonen
mechanicals were re-fitted and Big Sam was up and running in 10
days, a remarkable feat by any standards. The car made it to Castle
Combe, but with almost no testing hours and still largely in
primer. In spite of the rush Percy managed to secure a hugely
important third place and with just two further races to go Porsche
were becoming extremely worried about their championship chances.
After another strong showing by Percy and Big Sam at Mallory Park
in late September, an ex-works Carrera was provided to Nick Faure
to help him secure the Championship for Porsche in the last race.
The final showdown was at Thruxton on October 27th and was in many
ways an anti-climax. The ex-works Porsche of Faure expired on lap
three and Percy drove Big Sam to a comfortable 5th overall, which
was enough to secure the Championship.
Gathercole and Anderson had different plans for the 1975 season and
so Big Sam was sold on, ending up with Wolverhampton Datsun dealer
John Bradburn, who lightened the car and hill climbed it with some
success during 1976. Big Sam was next in action during 1981 when
hand controls were fitted for the car to be raced by Martin Sharpe,
formerly a motorcycle racer, who had been disabled in an earlier
accident. Sharpe and Big Sam proved to be another successful
pairing and at the end of the season they finished second in the
BRSCC Championship behind the Marcos of Mark Hales.
Over the years following 1981 Big Sam was little used and stored
until being acquired in 1989 by Nick Howell who commissioned Tim
Riley and his engineering firm to undertake a full rebuild. This
process has been well-documented in a number of magazine articles
but it is important to stress that one of the key aims of the work
was to preserve as much original material as possible. Consequently
the original Mehta works shell was straightened and repaired and
many fascinating original fittings were retained, such as the sump
guard brackets on the chassis legs and the intercom mounts on the
roll cage. A new engine was built, the last racing version having
suffered yet another blow up in 1981, and the car was fully
prepared for a return to competition. The first competitive outing
for Big Sam was at Silverstone 1990 when Riley drove it to 3rd
place overall. Further development work continued over the next
year or two, including different final drive ratios and an
overhauled gearbox. In spite of the occasional appearances...for
more information please contact the seller.