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**Innoloinarp** · 03-27-2012, 04:30 AM

I don't think you can lump together an entire nation in one grouping. Nissan's recent WRC attempts may have been poor but IIRC they had a Fairlady Z do well in the Safari back in the '70s didn't they? I don't think the Japanese are any better or worse than the Germans or Americans. BMW may not get motorsport but the VW group (when they can be bothered) have done very well with ALMS or F3 and Mercedes have not done badly either.

Hence why I didn't say that Japanese efforts were all bad. Datsun, of course, was hugely successful in rallying, especially on the African events, for some time. Toyota's rallying exploits were exceptional. So much of this has been down to setting up European-based competition arms, of course, but very few manufacturers of any nationality have run truly in-house motorsport efforts for a long time. Set against these positive examples, though, are those occasions when — it seems to me — there has been a peculiarly poor influence on the part of Japanese manufacturers when the bosses have attempted to gain too much influence and simply not understood what was required.

03-27-2012, 04:30 AM	#15
Innoloinarp Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 411 Senior Member	I don't think you can lump together an entire nation in one grouping. Nissan's recent WRC attempts may have been poor but IIRC they had a Fairlady Z do well in the Safari back in the '70s didn't they? I don't think the Japanese are any better or worse than the Germans or Americans. BMW may not get motorsport but the VW group (when they can be bothered) have done very well with ALMS or F3 and Mercedes have not done badly either. Hence why I didn't say that Japanese efforts were all bad. Datsun, of course, was hugely successful in rallying, especially on the African events, for some time. Toyota's rallying exploits were exceptional. So much of this has been down to setting up European-based competition arms, of course, but very few manufacturers of any nationality have run truly in-house motorsport efforts for a long time. Set against these positive examples, though, are those occasions when — it seems to me — there has been a peculiarly poor influence on the part of Japanese manufacturers when the bosses have attempted to gain too much influence and simply not understood what was required.
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