VIN: the works Nissan R390 Long Tail chassis R8
Nissan - Nissan R390 - Nissan VINs - R390 VINs - Nismo - TWR - Nissan Works Cars
History of chassis R8
Although Nissan had one of the fastest GT1 cars at the 1997 Le Mans 24 Hours, they were let down by poor reliability.
It transpired that, to accommodate the mandatory 125-litres of luggage space required by the GT1 regulations, the R390’s exhaust system had to be re-routed a few weeks before the race.
Unfortunately, the hot exhausts were moved too close to the gearbox oil cooler and melted the solder that held it together.
The reason this wasn’t identified before the race was because the R390s ran at Pre-Qualifying with the original exhaust layout and no luggage bins. The configuration was changed afterwards, but insufficient testing was carried out to spot the problem.
As a result, two of the three R390s were withdrawn during the race to ensure the best placed car had enough parts to finish.
1997 was an embarrassment for Nissan and their motor sport partner, TWR. However, they returned for another crack in 1998 with the revised R390 Long Tail.
Three new cars were assembled for the works team and a 1997 car was reconfigured to the latest specification for Nova Engineering.
Chassis R8 was allocated to Franck Lagorce and John Nielsen for Pre-Qualifying which took place on May 3rd. They wound up in seventh position overall and were sandwiched between Nissan’s sister cars in sixth and eighth. The Nova entry posted 16th fastest time.
Having run in a plain blue colour scheme at Pre-Qualifying, Nissan switched their trio of cars to a blue and white chequered livery for the big race. Each works R390 was backed by a different Nissan partner, in R8’s case it was car audio manufacturer, Clarion.
At the 24 hours, Lagorce and Nielsen were joined in R8 by Michael Krumm. They were the fastest R390 in practice and qualified tenth.
The 1998 event could not have been more different than the previous year’s debacle as the R390s proved to be the most reliable GT1 cars in attendance.
The Japanese crewed R390 of Hoshino / Suzuki / Kageyama came home in third, Nielsen / Lagorce / Krumm were fifth and the sister car of Lammers / Comas / Montermini placed sixth. The Nova entry finished tenth.
After its fifth-place finish, chassis R8 returned to Japan where it took up residence at Nissan’s Heritage Collection.
Notable History
Light Blue Nissan Livery
03/05/1998 IND Le Mans Pre-Qualifying (F. Lagorce / J. Nielsen) 7th oa, 7th GT1 class (#30)
Light Blue & White Clarion livery
07/06/1998 IND Le Mans 24 Hours (J. Nielsen / F. Lagorce / M. Krumm) 5th oa, 5th GT1 class (#30)
Nissan Heritage Collection
Text copyright: Supercar Nostalgia
Photo copyright: Nissan - https://www.nissan-global.com
