The Shelby American (Summer 2022)

The SHELBY AMERICAN Summer 2022 9 headquarters in Torrance, California and walked in cold. He asked to talk to whoever was in charge of perform- ance. No one there even knew the word. He finally spoke to their U.S. Parts Manager and explained the sit- uation. He was told that Datsun had no interest in racing because they did not think their cars were competitive. They had been told the cars were “junk” by privateers who were at- tempting to race them in SCCA events. He was shown the door. A subsequent talk with their head of Public Relations went nowhere. Brock was deflated but not defeated. He called a friend who was CFO at Hino and had arranged Brock’s racing contracts with that company. Brock had worked with him for three years and had forged an excellent relation- ship. Brock called him because he un- derstood the nuances of the Japanese culture (Hino management was vastly different than Toyota). Brock ex- plained that Datsun had shown no in- terest in racing. The man said he had “an old school friend” at Nissan and would call him. The friend turned out to be the Chairman of the Board. Two days later he called Brock back and told him Datsun would supply him with two new 2-liter roadsters and funding to run the team for the coming season. The cars were prepared for D/Production and BRE went on to win contacted Toyota and offered to turn the 2000 GT into a C/Production race car and win the SCCA National Championship. When Toyota re- sponded that they had already given the project to Brock’s company, Shelby countered that BRE was a small com- pany with no experience or racing his- tory. His company had won the World Manufacturers Championship. “ Hell, Brock worked for me when I was building Cobras.” Shelby said. “He was my tire man. ” Toyota, impressed by what the Cobra was and what it had done, reconsidered. They gave Shelby a $500K contract without telling Brock of their change of plans. The destination of the cars was quickly changed. Meanwhile, Brock was waiting for the overdue cars at his shop. A friend of his at Shelby’s se- cretly called him and told him Shelby had gotten the Toyota contract. “ Not possible ,” said Brock. “ We are starting on the Toyotas as soon as they arriv e. “ Peter, ” the friend said, “ The cars are sitting right here. ” Needless to say, Brock was infuri- ated. He called Toyota and after get- ting something of a runaround, he was told there had been a change in plans. The person he spoke with was obvi- ously embarrassed but the decision that had been made was over his head. With no alternative and facing finan- cial ruin, Brock drove over to Datsun’s the Pacific Coast Divsion D/Production Championship. Following that, Brock was invited to a meeting with the President of Nissan USA who had been following BRE’s progress all year. BRE was given a budget for the follow- ing year, 1969, to race the roadsters. Then he showed Brock pictures of their new 240Z and said BRE would be responsible for developing and preparing that car to run in the 1969 season. Japanese engineers had originally designed the 240Z’s twin-cam 2-liter engine because they had no idea the FIA rules and SCCA rules were com- pletely different. It was fairly easy to take the same, the basic “L” series 1600cc 4-cylinder “510” engine, and add two more cylinders to make it 2400cc for the U.S. market. But again, the Japanese engineers had no idea it would become a race engine so it was designed to use a low cost crankshaft without important counterweights which made it susceptible to destruc- tion at high rpms. Such high speeds would not normally be expected of a “street” engine. Brock realized this engine would not have been successful in the U.S. because it was too expensive (thus negating the price advantage against Porsche and Triumph). It would also not have passed Federal emission standards. BRE developed the engine