VIN: the works Nissan R390 chassis R4

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History of chassis R4

Chassis R4 was the most fancied of Nissan’s R390 trio taken to the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1997.

Allocated to ex-F1 driver, Martin Brundle, and Arrows test driver, Jorg Muller, it promisingly set fastest overall time at Pre-Qualifying in early May.

For the 24 Hour race five weeks later, Brundle and Muller were joined in R4 by experienced sports car pro, Wayne Taylor.

The car had appeared at Pre-Qualifying in a plain black livery. For the race, it was switched to a black and red colour scheme. Each of the three R390s ran with backing from a different Nissan partner, in R4’s case, this was Japanese car audio manufacturer, Clarion.

Brundle, Muller and Taylor qualified second quickest of the R390s in twelfth. R1 started fourth and R2 was down in 21st.

At the end of the second hour, Brundle came into the pits for a clutch change.

However, it was in the fourth hour that Nissan’s campaign became consumed by gearbox oil cooler problems.

Solder that held the oil coolers together was being melted by an exhaust system which had been re-routed after Pre-Qualifying. This had been done to accommodate the mandatory 125-litres of luggage space required by the GT1 regulations. A lack of pre-race testing meant TWR were unaware of the problems that would be caused.

Gearboxes had to be changed in two of the three cars. At one point, Nissan’s whole fleet of R390s were lined up in the pits having the offending units attended to.

All three cars soldiered on, but during the 13th hour, Nissan decided to withdraw R1 and R4 to ensure they had enough parts so that the best placed R390 (R2) could finish.

After its outing at the 24 Hours, R4 was shipped out to Japan to form part of Nissan’s Heritage Collection.

Notable History

Black Nissan livery

04/05/1997 IND Le Mans Pre-Qualifying (M. Brundle / J. Muller) 1st oa, 1st GT1 class (#21)

Black & Red Clarion livery

15/06/1997 IND Le Mans 24 Hours (M. Brundle / J. Muller / W. Taylor) DNF (#21)

Nissan Heritage Collection

Text copyright: Supercar Nostalgia
Photo copyright: Nissan - https://www.nissan-global.com