Nissan is celebrating 30 years of its in-house racing division. NISMO, a contraction of NIssan MOtorpsorts, was founded in September, 1984 in Omori, Tokyo and since then has been churning out cars that we stand in awe of.
But Nissan has a huge history when it comes to motorsport and everything just didn't start in 1984, but way back in 1936. Back then, the company collected its first victory with a Datsun car at the Tamagawa Circuit.
It was no looking back from there and the company's first international victory came in 1958 when a pair of Datsun 210s circumnavigated Australia in the Mobilgas Trial which is a grueling 10,000-mile rally on unpaved roads. One of the drivers, who was part of this rally - Yasuharu Namba, was appointed the first president of NISMO.
NISMO's formation was actually an effort to unite under a single banner disparate motorsports efforts within the company. The Omori factory had built many of the legendary Works GT-Rs and Z-Cars of the 1960s and 70s, while a separate motorsports branch in Oppama supported privateer teams.
Under the united NISMO banner, Nissan has launched a concerted global motorsports effort and has dominated the Japan Touring Car Championships with the Skyline GT-R, and its current efforts in SuperGT, GT3 and the Nissan GT Academy. This weekend, Nissan is participating in both the FIA WEC race in Austin, Texas and the Nurburgring 1000kms in Germany's Blancpain Endurance Series.
Don't forget that NISMO has churned out some of the most potent road cars based on existing Nissan products, starting with the NISMO 270R and 400R of the 1990s, a 270hp turbocharged version of the Nissan 240SX and a 400hp Skyline. The current lineup includes the 370Z NISMO, the 215hp Juke NISMO RS, and the bonkers 595hp GT-R NISMO.
And when it comes to the future, NISMO is currently working on a GT-R-based Le Mans prototype racer in a factory effort to challenge the French enduro. The Nissan GT-R LM NISMO will debut in 2015 but for the time being, this video takes you back in time to where it all began.
