A lot of stuff happened in 1979, like the Three Mile Island Accident, Rhodesia changed its name to Zimbabwe, and Margaret Thatcher was elected as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
But if you cast your eyes fixed on the gritty stages of the World Rally Championship, you just might have caught sight of a Datsun 160J kicking up the dirt on rally stages the world over. Missed out on the action? Here are over 50 pictures of that very car doing what it did best: jumping, skidding and generally tearing it up during the '79 Championship.
You can thank us later.
The 160J (and later the Violet) would go on to win the Safari Rally four times from 1979-1982, as well as winning the 1980 Motogard Rally of New Zealand and the 1981 Rallye Côte d'Ivoire.
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I really thought this was going to be one of those click here to see 50+ pictures things but WHAM!, there they all are. Thank you!
Thank you! That looked like some great racing!
I was at this rally, the Rallye Molson Criterium du Quebec. I watched the Canadian champion, Taisto Heinonen come by at speed and was very impressed. Then the two Datsuns came by, driven by Timo Salonen and Andy Dawson......much more impressed.......then the two Rothmans Ford Escorts came by, driven by Bjorn Waldegard and Ari Vatanen......about crapped my pants they were so fast. I was cheering the Datsuns on as my DD was a 1978 Datsun 510. The Datsun were Group 2 cars and the Escorts Group 4, so the Fords had a noticeable power advantage. I watched the Ford mec.hanics change out Vatanen's transmission on the shoulder of the road in about 12 minutes
Had to do a double take on the one with the square flares. It looked like a Fiat-Abarth 131 Rally.
Back in 1980-1983...don't remember exactly....didn't team Datsun Canada run one of these in the SCCA Pro Rally series?? Saw them at STPR but maybe they had regular 510's...to long ago.
In reply to sir_mike :
As I remember there was someone from Newport Beach California (John Woodner?) who ran one. Originally the plan was for Ford BDA power but rules wouldn't allow that so they ran a turboed Datsun. My memories are of a white car with a yellow stripe that ran from the rear bumper along the bottom of the quarter panel over the flares and rockers to the front.
I have a uncle that worked for the Datsun rally teams in Africa, might be him in the 8th image on the left side in the turban. Should give him a ring.
In 1979 the 160J's got second and sixth overall in NZ but were both excluded from the results as the Datsun team wouldn't allow the engines to be stripped at post event scrutineering.
I recall a story some years later from a UK (IIRC) driver that he ended up with one of them and it was around 2.5 litres.
R
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