The Nissan ZX-Turbo Dominated 1980s IMSA. Now It’s Getting the Props It Deserves

In Japan, Nissan maintains an amazing collection of the brand’s important vehicles at its Zama Heritage Center. Now, the automaker’s American division is taking on the challenge of restoring one of the company’s most important competition machines from this side of the Pacific. The championship-winning 1988 Nissan GTP ZX-Turbo is on display through August 17 at Laguna Seca for the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion. After that, it’s off to the Z Car Garage for a full restoration. 

“Considering the success of the GTP ZX in the IMSA series here in the U.S. and the timing around the 55th anniversary of the Z, it made sense to kick off its restoration and support Z Heritage in the U.S.,” says Nissan spokesperson Eric Ruble.

The Restoration

Z Car Garage is specifically restoring GTP ZX-Turbo chassis #8801, arguably the most historically significant example of these race cars. It scored eight straight wins in the 1988 IMSA GTP series, allowing Geoff Brabham to claim that season’s drivers’ championship.

The 1989 season was even better, as #8801 was the first Japanese car to achieve an overall victory at the 12 Hours of Sebring. By season’s end, Brabham scored another drivers’ championship, and this time, Nissan won the manufacturers’ championship, too.

Z Car Garage founder Rob Fuller is enthusiastic to begin restoring this GTP ZX-Turbo. “It’s actually kind of distracting,” he says. “It’s hard to work in my shop every day, and I cannot wait to hear it light off for the first time. I cannot wait to see it roll under its own power for the first time.”

Z Car Garage brought the GTP ZX-Turbo to the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion for the display and will then bring the car back its shop in nearby San Jose to begin the restoration. According to Fuller, the vehicle currently wears a fair amount of patina from its racing days. “There’s still gravel from its last event in one of the rear trays,” he says.

The restoration will balance originality with driver safety. For example, the suspension components require testing to make sure they can still withstand the massive downforce this car is capable of producing.

Fuller is friends with John Morton, who raced ZX-Turbo #8801 with Brabham as a teammate in 1988. His dream is to reunite the car and the driver. “We are gonna do everything in our power to preserve the glory, but make it where when somebody wants to get behind the wheel, whether it’s Morton or Brabham, whoever, we can keep them safe,” Fuller says.

Development Yields Success

In the early 1980s, Nissan wanted to move into IMSA’s top-tier GTP class but didn’t want to create a fully factory-backed team. Instead, the company tapped the Electramotive squad, which had already had success racing Datsuns in lower IMSA classes. The GTP ZX-Turbo started competing in 1985, but it struggled initially. The early cars used a chassis supplied by Lola that wasn’t competitive against the Porsches and Jaguars. The squad switched to a chassis designed in-house for the 1988 season, and the improved performance was immediately apparent. Number 8801 was the first one completed. 

“It arrived at our shop in December of 1987, right before Christmas,” former Electramotive engineer Chris Willes says. “We were able to do a twist test on it right before the Christmas break. We’d done one on the Lola, and we found that this new chassis Trevor [Harris] designed was 50 percent stiffer than the Lola chassis.” 

The ZX-Turbo’s cutting-edge powertrain was also a significant ingredient in the car’s recipe for success. The original plan was for the race car to use a modified version of the turbocharged V-6 from the contemporary road-going 300ZX Turbo, but the iron block couldn’t withstand the 1000-horsepower tuned output for very long. 

Nissan contracted Electramotive to design a new aluminum turbocharged V-6 for the GTP ZX-Turbo as well as its Group C car racing outside of the U.S. Willes’ role was the drafting. “There are 11 sheets, 34 inches by 44 inches, that were every view of the aluminum block to make the pattern machining.” 

Electramotive founder Don Devendorf, a former engineer at Hughes Aircraft, also created his own electronic engine management system for the powerplant that controlled the spark, fuel injection, and boost from a single unit. The ECU used erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM) chips that the team could swap out quickly to alter the system’s tuning. At the time, other teams still used obsolete solutions such as a distributor, mechanical fuel injection, and a spring on a pop-off valve for governing turbo boost. 

The Legacy

In addition to the ZX-Turbo’s display at the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion and the upcoming restoration of chassis #8801, IMSA will induct the Nissan GTP program and driver Geoff Brabham into the series’ Hall of Fame in October 2024. “I’m also excited that it’s going into the Hall of Fame,” Willes said. “That’s really cool to have a car that you worked on get that kind of recognition.”

Willes is also looking forward to seeing the completed restoration. “I can look through that car, and there are so many parts I worked on and so many parts I drew,” he says. “I can almost picture the drawings that I did. When I look at that car now, I can just go through the whole thing, and I can tell you if it’s real or not.”

The IMSA GTP class provided some of the most exciting racing in the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s. Marques like Jaguar, Nissan, Porsche, and Toyota engaged in close on-track battles at a mix of road courses and street circuits. It’s encouraging to see Nissan put the time, effort, and money into restoring such an important piece of American motorsports history, especially with a shop as enthusiastic as Z Car Garage leading the restoration.

Fuller is already imagining how to premiere the freshly restored ZX-Turbo. “I daydream about rolling up to the Rolex. Morton comes out, and he’s wearing his Nissan suit. We hop in there and he buses that thing around. Toyota’s there and Mazda’s there and the Jags are there, and it’s 1988 again.”