NISMO Nirvana: step inside Nissan's Zama Heritage Centre

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Photos / Nissan

Photos / Nissan

Thousands of fans either attended Fuji International Speedway or tuned in to watch Nissan motorsport history on the track at last week's 20th running of the NISMO Festival.

Where did those classic Nissans - Group C cars, Super GT cars, Touring Cars and even an incredible display of rally cars - come from? The Zama Heritage Centre in Japan.

 The Heritage Centre features over 400 cars from the company's motorsport past - plus a significant range of road cars that date back to the Datsun type 12 Phaeton from 1933 - with many of them on show at the NISMO Festival.

Along with the traditional NISMO Grand Prix race featuring entries from Super GT, Super Taikyu and Europe’s Blancpain GT Series championships, the event included a Racing GT-R Heritage Run; this featured 16 famous GT-Rs from Nissan’s racing heritage dating back to the Skyline HT 2000 GT-R from the late 60s.

Other cars taking part were the Group A-spec Nissan Skyline GT-R R32, including the Calsonic version driven by NISMO legend Kazuyoshi Hoshino.

The R32 won an incredible 29 consecutive races in Japan and was recently voted by fans in the NISMOtop20 poll on Twitter as the greatest Nissan/NISMO racecar of all time.

The 1995 and 1996 Le Mans GT-R racers were on track along with JGTC/Super GT race winners from 1998, 1999, 2003, 2008, 2013 and 2017.

Nissan’s 2011 FIA GT1 World Championship winning GT-R was driven by Michael Krumm, while Katsumasa Chiyo piloted the Bathurst 12 Hour-winning Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3.

Racing legends who returned to the track at the NISMO Festival included Takahashi Kunimitsu, Tsuchiya Keiichi, Hagiwara Osamu, and 1998-99 champion Erik Comas.

“We’re very thankful for the support of the fans throughout the season,” said NISMO president Takao Katagiri.

“Although we missed Super GT championship by mere two points, the victory at the final round gave us a clear direction of what should be done over the winter for the next season.

“As a new challenge, Nissan and NISMO will compete in the all-electric FIA Formula E championship which starts in December next year, and we will look forward to seeing you all again to celebrate our victories.”

View the full gallery bellow.

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