just to agree with stirlingmac (theres a new idea )

We used to have alot of former F1 cars in NZ, they used to come out for the NZ grand prix every year and often left alot of the cars here (talking stirling moss era and earlier). I think due to the big prices alot have now left the country again.

The one name that comes to mind for racing a 1200 SSS is greg murphy who I think still holds some class lap records but im sure theres alot more

Hey Matt, I am not offended by your comments at all. But NZ is a small country and in the 70's barely had a population of 3 million, but it was a well informed nation. Motorsport is hugely popular here and if a company were to market a car as a performance car and it wasn't they would have been rubbished. Australasia has a proud history of unique factory built performance cars, since the car was invented we have ended up with some extremely rare and exotic vehicles. NZ has more Ferraris per head of population than anywhere else in the world. Motorsport icons ,Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme, Chris Amon and Sir Jack Brabham are household words. In the late 70s a huge media scaremongering campaign dubbed the "Supercar Scare" caused manufacturers to stop factory built racecars being sold to members of the public...cars like the 140mph + Phase 3 Ford Falcons, Chargers,Toranas etc that were built to satisfy minimum quotas to qualify for production status.These were the same extremely popular races that the 1200 SSS raced very successfully in. I remember seeing the little Dattos outbraking the big Mustangs, Falcon's and Z28's and then getting blown away on the straights. We also got the perfomance Fords from England with the RS Escorts and Capris. Fiats , Lancias,and other Euros and the Toyotas, Hondas and Mazdas from the land of the rising sun. We have had rounds of the world rally championship here for years as well. bringing all the best teams and cars from Europe and Asia . Many of these cars stayed in NZ too. We also had a round of the ill fated World Touring Car Championship which pitted BMW , Nissan,Toyota, Ford (Europe) , Jaguar and Australia's , Ford , and Holden (GM). We are truly spoilt when it comes to motorsport and have been for a long time...The 1200SSS is still a repected car in motorsport circles here, with many drivers starting theirs careers in them and has achieved "classic" status. along with the RS Fords and Muscle cars from around the world. I know that in recent years auto manufacurers have "labelled" cars with tags that they were not worthy of...The Mustang II King Cobra and early 80's Z28 come to mind but the 1200SSS was not one of those. By the way it is purely accidental both my examples are American but I had a 82 Z28 and it was a nail. After reading of the mighty Z28's for years I was bitterly disappointed with Chevy's performance offering....and the Mustang II well even Mustang fans giggle over them too.....

Umm, I should've stayed out of this thread being that it's obviously a sacred cow to you guys (besides being none of my business). So allow me to defer any defense of my position for the sake of our fraternity and (especially) in light of the dreaded rotary thread.

I heard today that Tony Marsh has some footage of the shellsport series with his 1200, that was converted to video lately.

I wonder if he would allow it to be copied for a price???
reckon it would be worth getting, as that was a pretty hot series!

to me that makes no sense so how bout you explain your argument

I understand what stirlingmac is saying, but I still believe 1200sss label was an advertising gimmic, the fact of which certainly does not detract from its racing success or mechanical prowess.

nothing wrong with mums 2000mdl SSS puslar SR20DE, goes bloody good

i was thinking the other day the 1200 would make a good classic racer if you fitted it with GX head and twin 40 dellortos, im not 100%sure how tight the rules are in classic racing but i figure these would definately be allowed on 1200's where twin sidies wouldnt for other cars, and they may even allow 1400 motor cause in utes??

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The SSS badge was definately abused later when it was fitted to all sorts of lard ass (sorry to any owners) Pulsars and Bluebirds. They were the top model but never had the sporting ability that the early SSS's had

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That is far from the truth........the SSS was a veiled attempt by Nissan to build a sedan that would win the NZ touring car 0 to 1300cc class and beat their rival Toyota which they did resoundingly. Factory specials weren't banned but were'nt encouraged either. There was a special version of the Fiat 125 called the 125T which was a 1600cc class winner in NZ as well. It was not a styling thing it was a performance thing most definately. The production SSS's were "intended " to have the garden variety round port heads but the existance of the GX heads wasn't common knowledge outside of Datsun/Nissan circles at the time...It is fairly safe to say some of the racing versions had these heads fitted "accidentally". Dennis Marwood has manufactured inlet manifolds for A12s from when they were new and there has always been a a oval port GX version...and considering he had a big hand in the building of the SSS you do the math!!! Nissan NZ only built the SSS versions of the 1200 and 120Ys because they started to concentrate on a new class of motorsport called Shellsport which allowed even greater levels of modifications.

Apparently, the 1200sss label was simply an advertising gimic.