Nissan’s Off Road Racing Legacy
SHARP & Nissan
In the world of competitive motorsports, the design, durability and performance of vehicles are pushed to their absolute limits. Whether on pavement or off-road, motorsports are a way for manufacturers to flex their engineering muscle while testing their vehicles and components and learning valuable lessons along the way.
Nissan has a long and rich history of racing both on pavement and off-road, as well as in rally racing which commonly combines the two. From pre-runners to pickups to SUVs, Nissan’s DNA is deeply steeped in the tough and rugged worlds of rally, desert and circuit racing, and lessons learned along the way are built into every model they build today.
Here’s a look at how.
Back in 1966, a Datsun Prince R380 was the winner of the Japanese Grand Prix, and the Datsun Bluebird 1300SS was the winner of the East African Safari Rally in the under 1300 class.
In 1970, Nissan again won the East African Safari Rally and was a joint winner in the Round Australia Trial. Though modified to meet the challenges of rally racing and off-road circuits, the 1600 SSS (Super Sport Sedan) was a series production model available in several versions which sold more than 1.5 million units over 5 years.
East African Safari Rally
East African Safari Rally
East African Safari Rally
East African Safari Rally
East African Safari Rally
East African Safari Rally
East African Safari Rally
East African Safari Rally
East African Safari Rally
In 1971, Nissan won the East African Safari Rally again, this time in a Datsun 240Z sports car modified highly for off-road use. Throughout the rest of the 1970’s, Nissan’s Datsun models went on to collect an impressive trophy rack full of wins in both safari and rally racing, as well as on-track championships like the SCCA Trans Am 2.5 and Japanese Grand Prix.
The Datsun Stanza (also known as the Violet) kicked off Nissan’s racing successes in 1980 with a win at the Australian Rally Championship and Safari Rally.
By 1987, Nissan was the first manufacturer to complete the brutal Paris-Dakar Rally with a diesel engine in the Nissan Patrol Fanta Limon racing truck—a machine that went on to write its own chapter in the Dakar history books while bringing the popular 4×4 Nissan Patrol nameplate into a high-profile off-road endurance rally. With a modified version of the consumer-spec Patrol 4×4, Nissan had achieved strong success in the most challenging race in the world.
The race didn’t go smoothly, but the truck was the first diesel to finish, in 9th place overall.
Lessons learned from this daring experience would be preserved in a gene-pool from which future Nissan off-road racing and consumer models would draw. In fact, in 1986 and 1987, Nissan racked up 4 finishes across four rally races, coming in first place amongst diesel-powered models each time.
In the late 80’s, the Nissan Hardbody pickup truck was entering the scene. This compact truck was not Nissan’s first– but when the Hardbody appeared in the late eighties, it cemented Nissan firmly on the mental radar of shoppers after utility, value, durability and efficiency.
Like numerous earlier 4×4 models including the Patrol before it, it wasn’t long before Nissan’s engineering, motorsports and design teams turned the unassuming Hardbody pickup into an off-road racing machine that went on to earn multiple wins in 1987, including the Baja 1000 and Gold Coast 300.
1990 Nissan Paris-Dakar Rally Entry
1990 Nissan Paris-Dakar Rally Entry
1990 Nissan Paris-Dakar Rally Entry
1990 Nissan Paris-Dakar Rally Entry
1990 Nissan Paris-Dakar Rally Entry
To help celebrate these successes, a specialized Hardbody Desert Runner model was created and sold through dealers via a limited run of factory-built trucks with targeted upgrades including off-road lighting, a limited-slip axle, grille guards, a tailgate net, specialty suspension and a tough welded-box ladder frame. In this way, the Nissan Hardbody Desert Runner gave a rapidly-growing community of Nissan 4×4 enthusiasts around the globe a way to bring some of the brand’s off-road racing prowess to their driveways.
Along a similar timeline, the first generation of Nissan’s Pathfinder SUV was also hitting the scene. Built using many of the structural and driveline components of the race-proven Hardbody pickup, the Pathfinder launched in 1985.
Like the Hardbody, a specialized off-road racing variant was soon built– leveraging previous generations of success and lessons learned in the world of motorsports. By 1990, the Pathfinder racing truck had entered the Baja 500 for the first time, winning the event on its initial attempt. This success not only provided Nissan with more real-life experience from which to draw upon for future products, but also helped propel the Pathfinder to global sales success and solidify Nissan’s position as a force to be reckoned with in the world of off-road racing.
The original Nissan Hardbody ended its production run in 1997 and was replaced the following year by the Nissan Frontier pickup, which is still in production today. Like its predecessor, the Frontier went on to be modified into various forms for off-road racing applications, alongside consumer versions available to the public.
By 2020, Nissan was the only automaker to have sponsored a team in the womens-only Rebelle rally every year since it’s inception in 2016. Leveraging the history of the Frontier and the Hardbody before it, the 2020 Rebelle Rally would see Nissan enter a highly-modified second-generation Frontier pickup built using specialized off-road parts from Nissan’s motorsports division, NISMO. These parts were designed, built and validated using past lessons from racing successes around the globe.
For the 2021 Rebelle Rally, Nissan provided a racing-capable version of the all-new third-generation Frontier for the event, again using NISMO off-road parts and featuring a specialized paint and badging package inspired by the original Nissan Hardbody racers of the 80’s as a means of connecting the brand’s racing heritage and lineage over time.
For the 2022 Rebelle Rally, Nissan provided racers with a motorsports-ready version of the new Pathfinder Rock Creek—a modified version of a model currently on sale today.
In this way, modern Nissan 4×4 models like the Frontier and Pathfinder have mud in their genes, and dust in their DNA. With factory-built off-roaders like the Pathfinder Rock Creek and Nissan Frontier PRO-4X, Nissan’s long and rich history of off-road racing heritage is captured in every 4×4 they sell.
Look closely, and you’ll even spot some visual nods to the brand’s famous racing vehicles—including the rugged tubular roof rack, all-terrain tires and beadlock-style wheels included with the new Nissan Pathfinder Rock Creek, and the arsenal of off-road suspension, lighting, styling and other accessories available via NISMO off-road parts for the Nissan Frontier.
