Leads and clues to demystifying the orange "1974 Fuji Shakedown" and yellow "1979 Super Silhouette Fuji #20" Datsun 160J SSS KP710 Violet Turbo.

A bit of detective work and some guessing here. I'm reminded of Benedict Cumberbatch in his gripping Sherlock detective series :-).

I have not got solid proof but I'll so much say that these thoughts are not solely my own and have been formed and strengthened through emails with enthusiasts, blog sites and images seen over the past several months.

Try searching the web and most likely there will be very little info more than what I'm about the say. I'm ready to be proven wrong by anyone with better knowledge. Most info comes from scale model manufacturers/dealers both 1/24 and 1/43.

First question is "Where is the Tan Chong & Sons Motor Co. 1974 Datsun 160J SSS KP710 Violet Turbo #123?". The winning car we now know through newspaper archives won the 1974 Malaysia Selangor GP driven by Kunimitsu Takahashi.

Refer here for a picture of #123:  Datsun Violet Turbo #123

What happened to all the other cars such as:

• #118, #119 both standard production class of 1301-1600cc, 
• #121 improved touring cars of class 1301-1600cc.
• Well, we all now know what happened to car #120.
• 
  

Cars #120 and #123 belonged to the more powerful turbo 1601cc and above class cars and they were obviously the more exciting ones to look at and will be the class we'll concentrate on in this post. I personally have heard from an ex-race car driver 21 years ago that #123 was sent back to Japan after the victory race in 1974 leaving behind car #120 in Malaysia. Nichimo makes a 1/24 scale model of car #123 in celebration of the victory confirming that.

What about the yellow coloured car #20 sponsored by Harada Racing that was entered into the 1979 Super Silhouette Fuji Race? That was a very special race displaying all of Japan's FIA Group 5 cars from the past till that year of 1979. Could it be the same #123 car resprayed!! Observations from online pics shows that it had the same frontal signal lamps placement as #123.

Refer this site: Picture of yellow coloured 1979 Super Silhouette Fuji Race #20 car

Note that the mysterious orange coloured 1974 Fuji Shakedown car had different frontal signal lamps orientated vertically in the lower frontal spoiler area.

Reference this link: A picture of orange coloured 1974 Fuji Shakedown Violet

Latest update!! Just as I was drafting this post, well-known Ed Rattley of www.ratdat.com, a Nissan/Datsun veteran from the UK who had just become my email pal only last week posted a very exciting article of the Datsun 160J Violet Turbo.

Check it out at: http://www.datsun-france.com/Ratdat/ratdatblog/?p=11025

Ed showed me one popular site, refer here: http://minkara.carview.co.jp/en/userid/1375955/car/1010128/3083849/photo.aspx

This is an awesome site showing the Datsun 160J SSS KP710 Violet Turbo in different colours. I agree with Ed's suspicion that this could be #123 resprayed!!

One last hypothesis I put forth albeit untested. Could the 1974 Fuji Shakedown car be #121 wearing different colours? This would hold water if only I could determine the date of the 1974 Fuji Shakedown race to be held some time later than September of 1974 and if there was any more info on the "Improved Touring Cars class 1301-1600cc. Come on! If any among you know of any further news/facts do comment! :-)

More to come...cheers!