This special racing edition of Rare Rides was made possible by the Infiniti Q50 First Drive event in Nashville, Tennessee, which also provided the source material for this Q50 review and this Q60 Picture Time. Our Rare Ride today also happens to be my 100th contribution to TTAC. Time flies!
Let’s have a little look at some Japanese racing royalty, starting with some history.
The Prince Motor Company was a short-lived Japanese manufacturer, producing cars from 1954 until its merger with Nissan in 1966. The company began life as an airplane manufacturer in World War II: the Takichawa Aircraft Company.
Specializing in luxury cars, Prince founded the Skyline and Gloria lines. Two more lasting nameplates, the Homy van and the Laurel sedan, were Prince designs that went into the Nissan merger unfinished and came out the other side as Nissan vehicles. Filtered down through the years, the Nissan Gloria would arrive in North America as the original Infiniti M (eventually the Q70), and the Skyline as the Infiniti G (eventually Q50/Q60).
This R380 was the first (and only) attempt by Prince to create a purpose-built race car. Development started after modified Prince Skyline models were defeated by mid-engine Porsche 904s at the 1964 Japanese Grand Prix.
Under the rear hatch lies a 2.0-liter inline-six engine. The engine used here was the same as in Skyline production models, but reworked to produce a whopping 200 horsepower for race duty. The modified Skyline engine mated to a British Hewland five-speed manual transmission. Hewland is still in business, making transmissions for race series today.
Production of the R380 would take place between 1965 and 1968. Unfortunately for Prince, the first year of production netted only disappointment — the Japanese Grand Prix was cancelled for 1965. Instead of racing, Prince used the R380’s downtime to test high-speed aerodynamics and break some speed records.
The Japanese Grand Prix returned in 1966, and Prince was ready with four R380 examples. Those cars captured first and second place, besting even the newly designed trio of Porsche 906 models.
Nissan took over Prince that same year, and for 1967 reworked the car into the R380-II. But these revisions were not enough to overcome advances made by Porsche that year, and Nissan placed second, third, fourth, and sixth place. Porsche won by a margin of two full minutes.
Nissan continued on to make several racing successors through 1980, all traced back to this original Prince R380. Some Prince structure and influence remained in place at Nissan for several years, as well. In the Japanese market, Nissan maintained a dealership line called the Nissan Prince Store. The line was eventually consolidated into Nissan Blue Stage, though not until 1999.
So long, Prince.
[Images © Corey Lewis/The Truth About Cars]
Nothing about the uncanny resemblance?
I thought the same thing. I actually thought it was a GT-40 at first, and then all through the article was expecting the resemblance to come up…
Looks more like the 1964 Ferrari 250 LM to my eye. From some angles at least.
Also interesting that, after tweaking the aeros, it had the 1 – 2 win in 1966. I thought of the GT-40 right off – just add American racing blue and it’s not too far off.
Thanks Corey for bringing this one to the show.
This was just sitting in central Ohio somewhere?
No, Tennessee like I says at the top. It was at the lunch stop for the day.
D’oh.
So long, Prince.
Awwwwwwwwwww, Come ON! You missed the chance to use: “Goodnight, Sweet Prince.”
Well I didn’t think of that one.
I agree. What sort of medieval torture should we bestow upon him?
Deprivation of Torque until he cries: “UNCLE!”
Make it so arch bishop.
I am already proceeding towards a base spec Altima for my torque punishment.
The B&B’s ire shall descend upon you like PURPLE RAIN!
Try a CVT equipped Corolla for torque punishment. It’s so bad they should nickname it…wait for it…Torquenada.
Cue the cast of “Mel Brooks HISTORY OF THE WORLD, PART 1”
Let’s face it, you can’t Torquemada anything.
“Hewland is still in business making transmissions for Formula 1 …”
This will come as a surprise to Hewland itself. They make parts to spec for F1 teams, but no transmissions yea these past 30 years.
Fixed.
Any relation to the Nissan R390?
I don’t think so. That was sort of “part II” of Nissan’s race program, taking place a good 15 years later than the last derivations of their prior car.
Bradley Brownell also wrote a nice piece on the R380 (with a photo gallery) on the Hooniverse last week:
It Was An Honor To Meet The Prince
http://hooniverse.com/2017/07/25/it-was-an-honor-to-meet-the-prince/
He went upstairs and I didn’t think to do that.
Picture quality very bad!
Excelent as usual, Corey.
Very interesting content, and I like that you’re paying attention to commenters instead of just ignoring the (minor) corrections. Takes a bigger person to be open to that.
Happy 100th.
Thank you!
I’m very willing to make corrections, especially when I read something wrong – which I certainly did.
Exactly, we all do it (misunderstand or misread or misremember). Better to take action than stubbornly stand by the fault.
Do you have an @TTAC address? I had found a couple of cars I had felt would be of interest to your for segments like this. I don’t have them on hand now or I’d post them here, but I keep forgetting to ask.
I do not. But you can send them to me via Twitter, which is linked to my name here.
“Japanese racing royalty” and no mention of this bad boy?
http://ami.animecharactersdatabase.com/uploads/chars/9180-488622339.jpg
Shame on you, Corey…
Is that part of the original cartoon? It just needs some eyes on the windows and it would fit right into Cars.
Yep, it’s from the original “Speed Racer” cartoon. Actually, it reminds me of the Cat Bus from “My Neighbor Totoro.”
http://www.absoluteanime.com/my_neighbor_totoro/catbus.jpg
Which means Miyazaki was a) riffing on other cartoons, b) tripping his balls off, or c) both.
(Still, one of my top ten movies ever…LOVE “Totoro.”)
The Mammoth Car! (not really a car, more of a road train than anything else, but why be picky?)
Glad I’m not the only person on TTAC who is a fan of Miyazaki. I never noticed the connection between the Mammoth Car and Catbus before though. Now I won’t be able to unsee it.
The Prince GR8 engine in these cars was also the basis for the Nissan S20 engine of old-school C10 and C110 GT-R fame (and the Fairlady Z432).
Great find. But, do you have some engine pic porn of the engine bay.
Nope, it was definitely a “don’t touch this” sort of environment. Doors closed, cat flaps closed.
Do a Google search for ZCON 2017. The car made an appearance there.
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4236/35365694532_8e245aa644.jpg
Nice, like a little side boob tease of the engine bay.
Love the tail lights. Spend money where it counts.
they look like Lotus Cortina Mk1 lights. Long tradition of high end sports machines using mass market lights culminating in the Mac F1.
To my eye its a 250LM-a-like but its clearly a Prince to Japan-aphiles.
A lot of cars of this era are very delicate and feminine looking.
I love the GT40 but the thing is full on aggression.
I don’t know whether to praise or chastise this article for not using ‘GT-R’ clickbait anywhere, considering this was the origin of the original GT-R’s S20.
I saw this at Amelia Island Concours in March. Nice. and Loud. And an acquaintance here near Muncie, Indiana Gary Bartlett could see his car’s TWIN… google Bartlett GT40. I thought it WAS Gary’s GT40 for a moment. But alas he brought an Eleanor Stang this year. I have video of this Prince. It’s pretty nice.
Ok, I uploaded my personally taken video of this car passing by me at Amelia Island. https://vid.me/BrlvX