Derek J Rawson

The Datsun Rally Team in Australia: 1974 - 1981 Derek J Rawson

From early 1976 until late 1984, Nissan Motor Co. Australia's motor sports exploits were conducted by an internal entity known, until 1981, as the Datsun Rally Team and thereafter just as Nissan Sport. The management of the team came within the responsibilities of the Product Evaluation Manager, Howard Marsden.

Between 1976 and 1981 the team won four Australian Rally Championships and four Southern Cross International Rallies as well as several other top level events in this "sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains."* We saw it all along the way.

Due to a string of fortuitous circumstances I was in the right place at the right time and found myself in the thick of it all until Nissan Sport was re-privatised and became Gibson Motorsport in '85.

Here collected are the facts and figures relating to the cars we used, the events we participated in, and the stories of the heroes and characters involved.

For the years 1981 till late 1984 when we raced the Turbo Bluebird please see my companion book: Nissan Sport - Touring Car Racing in Australia.