Datsun 240K: The Maestro, His Masterpiece and a Brilliant Bathurst Drive
"Doug Whiteford was one of the great unsung heroes of Australian motor sport - many thought he was a better driver than Jack Brabham,” said former team-mate James Laing-Peach, reflecting on the three-time AGP winner’s sublime performance in a Datsun 240K Hardtop in the final hours of the 1974 Bathurst 1000 which ranks as one of the Mountain’s greatest drives.
"Doug was not only a demon driver, he was also a very clever tactician and his race-craft was unbelievable. He squeezed everything out of the 240K that day, particularly in the wet. They really were atrocious conditions but he just loved it, it was heaven to him. It was like "so, you don’t think I can get this thing to the finish line in a good placing - well, watch this."
Although aged in his early 60s, the decorated veteran proved the passing of time had not dimmed his raw speed or enthusiasm. The Datsun he shared with Stewart McLeod was two laps behind the runaway Mazda RX-3 class leader when Doug strapped in for his second and final stint, but the whole complexion of the battle changed when it started to rain.
The Datsun became one of the fastest cars on the circuit, with Whiteford carving minutes out of that huge lead despite near-zero visibility at times and treacherous rivers of water running across the track. If not for a punctured tyre, Whiteford was well on track to catch and pass the leading Mazda to score an astonishing victory in a car that was not previously considered a threat to the rotary rocket (you can read a detailed account of his drive later in the story).
Doug Whiteford with the mighty Talbot-Lago T26C at Melbourne’s Albert Park during the 1956 Australian Grand Prix meeting. Whiteford scored two of his three AGPs victories in this glorious 4.5 litre straight six GP racer, including the 1952 race held at Mount Panorama.
However, Whiteford and McLeod were elevated to first place the next day after the winning RX-3 was excluded for rear axle anomalies discovered in post-race scrutineering. Datsun’s win stood for about six months while a lengthy appeals process took place. It took until April 1975 before the case was finally resolved in the Mazda team’s favour and its win reinstated.
Even so, the Datsun had finished an outstanding seventh outright, beaten only by the RX-3 plus four Toranas and the winning Goss/Bartlett Falcon GT in the outright class. Datsun was so enamoured by Whiteford’s performance, it even published a full-page press advertisement in 1975 titled 'The amazing story of the Maestro & the Masterpiece' which told the tale of his epic drive and the surprising performance of its 'masterpiece' 240K Hardtop (see advert below).
Whiteford, who won the 1950, 1952 and 1963 Australian Grands Prix, was certainly a maestro at Mount Panorama, as the second of his three AGP wins had occurred there more than two decades before.
Back then he was flashing down a bumpy Conrod Straight in a magnificent front-engined 4.5 litre Talbot-Lago T26C single seater at speeds exceeding 240km/h, his exposed arms pumping away at a huge steering wheel to keep the wire-spoked French thoroughbred under masterful control for almost two hours on his way to victory.
This is the advertisement that appeared in the 1975 Bathurst 1000 race program. Although the works-backed Datsun Racing Team was destined for the history books by then, Datsun was still selling the car and obviously keen to exploit any opportunity to promote it.
His transition from single seaters to sedans and production sports cars in the 1960s included drives in each of the Armstrong 500s at Phillip Island. When the race moved to Mount Panorama, Whiteford joined the factory-backed Datsun Racing Team under owner and co-driver John Roxburgh, sharing in some important class wins and podiums for the Japanese marque between 1966 to 1975.
On paper, though, 1974 presented his most difficult assignment for Datsun. The 240K Hardtop was entered in the 2001-3000cc division (Class C) which was being dominated by Mazda’s mercurial Series 2 RX-3 Coupe. In standard form, the Mazda’s 130bhp 12A rotary engine had power to burn in a sweet-handling and aero-efficient package weighing less than 1000kg.
By comparison, the larger 240K Hardtop was seen more as a luxurious executive express than a Bathurst contender. It weighed at least 200kg more than its Mazda rival, with less power (111hp vs 130hp) but more torque (132ft/lbs vs 115 ft/lbs) from the 240Z's 2.4 litre SOHC inline six with two-barrel carburettor. It also boasted more sophisticated independent rear suspension, but the Mazda’s crucial power-to-weight ratio was in another league.
This is how the brand new 240K looked during its first public showing at Melbourne’s Calder Park, where the Datsun Racing Team took the opportunity to take these ID shots for its CAMS log book. It didn’t even have race numbers at that stage.
1973: Datsun’s 240K Hardtop Goes Racing
Under new Group C touring car rules introduced in 1973, there were a number of classes based on engine capacities. Not surprisingly, the smallest capacity Class A (up to 1300cc) was appealing to Japanese marques.
By mid-year the Datsun Racing Team had shown its commitment to winning the first Group C Manufacturers Championship (or ManChamps) title, with a new and extremely fast 1200 coupe for Bill Evans and James Laing-Peach that went on to win four of the five long distance rounds.
Datsun was also interested in chasing trophies further up the pecking order. Its brief experiment with a 180B SSS in Class B (1301-2000cc) in the latter half of 1973 proved unsuccessful, but it also wanted to showcase the Prince Skyline sporting prowess behind its new 240K Hardtop.
Laing-Peach revealed that the DRT's Datsun 1200 coupe he drove was more than just a showroom example plucked from the production line. It was in fact a genuine factory lightweight, hand-built from scratch on a steel plate and shipped directly from Japan, featuring all kinds of tweaks including panels joined by epoxy glue rather than spot welds to save weight.
The 240K’s second and last outing in 1973 was in the 500km final round of the Manufacturer’s Championship at Phillip Island, where Tony Roberts finished third in Class C in his final drive for the team.
"The 240K was hand-built in Japan, too, just like the 1200 and 180B," he said. "Those three cars were all built by the special vehicles department, or whatever that was before NISMO. They were all demons. I can’t recall in close detail what was done to that car (240K) because I was focused on the 1200, but it was clearly punching way above its weight because it only had a 2.4 litre engine.
"Also, the team’s head mechanic was a German by the name of Carl-Heinz Schwab who John had brought into Australia around the time of the Ampol Trial in 1970. Carl-Heinz was a demon mechanic - he could do all sorts of stuff."
It would be fair to assume then, based on the 1200 coupe, that the works 240K Hardtop was also built as light as possible. Its most noticeable modification from stock was a reduction in wheel diameter from the road car’s 14-inch rims to 13s. This lowered the final drive gearing for better acceleration, dropped the centre of gravity for improved handling and gave access to the latest generation of wet and dry Dunlop racing tyres out of Japan.
In the 1960s Phillip Island was cursed with a notoriously brittle track surface which forced the annual Armstrong 500 to move to Bathurst. A decade later, at the 1973 ManChamp round, the same problem still existed and was a constant hazard for drivers and track marshalls.
Suspension geometry and roll stiffness were also optimised. Engine power was increased with a more aggressive camshaft profile, a big Weber IDA two-barrel downdraught carburettor with 48mm chokes on a six-branch Skyline GT manifold and a less restrictive exhaust system. There really wasn’t much you could do to the cars in those early Group C years. Well, legally anyway.
The hand-built 240K arrived from Japan too late race at Bathurst in 1973, but it did compete in the fourth and fifth rounds of the ManChamp series in the experienced hands of 1969 Bathurst winner Tony Roberts.
It made a solid debut in the Surfers Paradise 300 in November by finishing second in class, albeit two laps behind the winning Mazda RX-2 rotary. Third place behind another RX-2 and the class-winning LC Torana GTR at Phillip Island’s 500km ManChamp final round showed the 240K had enough potential to continue racing in 1974.
Stewart McLeod greets the chequered flag after finishing fourth in class in his debut drive in the 240K at the 1974 Sandown 250. The 1000km Bathurst race which followed required two drivers, prompting the return of Doug Whiteford.
1974 Bathurst 1000: The 240K’s Great Race
The works 240K Hardtop did not reappear until round two of the 1974 ManChamps, the Sandown 250 in early September. Tony Roberts had been replaced by top South Australian rally driver Stewart McLeod, who was also driving a Datsun 240Z in the Australian Rally Championship.
McLeod finished fourth in class at Sandown, behind strong Mazda RX-3 and Torana GTR rivals. With the 180B SSS plans shelved, it was decided to tackle two classes at the next and most important ManChamps round - Bathurst.
The mercurial Bill Evans was again teamed with James Laing-Peach to chase another Class A win in the 1200 coupe. McLeod was paired with the evergreen Doug Whiteford in the 240K, where they would have their work cut out trying to topple Tony Farrell’s RX-3 co-driven by the fast and experienced Brian ‘Brique’ Reed. Farrell had already run away with the first two ManChamp rounds at Adelaide and Sandown, so Whiteford’s return was seen as giving the 240K its best chance of success on the Mountain.
It’s interesting to note that Whiteford’s quickest qualifying time in this car at Bathurst in 1974 (2 min 55.7 secs) was more than six seconds quicker than his fastest race lap set there in 1952 aboard the Talbot-Lago (3 min 2 secs), when he won the Australian Grand Prix. That’s progress!
"Doug could drive anything, anywhere, anytime and Stewart was really pushing him hard for the drive," Laing-Peach revealed. "The Mazda RX-3s were well sorted by that stage where as the 240K hadn’t done much racing and Stewart was still an unknown commodity as a race driver.
"John figured if we’re going to go anywhere with the 240K in development terms it would be handy to have Doug there. He could do qualifying times all day, every day, for the length of the day and then come back and write it all up in the race book to let us know exactly what happened."
Australian rally champion Bob Watson was sharing an LC Torana GTR with Roger Bonhomme in Class C that year. In his autobiography In Control, Watson recalled a glimpse of Whiteford magic on the Mountain that year:
"McLeod was first out to practice and after about 12 laps gradually reduced his lap time to around 3 mins 1 sec. Whiteford was standing by waiting his turn to practice, immaculate in a spotless white driving suit and gloves and when the sweating McLeod climbed out, obviously having worked very hard, Doug got in the car. His first flying lap was just over 3 minutes and the next two were 2 mins 58 secs and 2 mins 56 secs, after which he pulled into the pits and alighted, cool as a cucumber. McLeod was dumbfounded."
Although Laing-Peach was sharing the 1200 coupe with Bill Evans, he was given his first and only chance to drive the 240K in anger. Towards the end of qualifying, Datsun team manager Russell Lanyon realised that Laing-Peach had not completed the minimum six laps required by each driver during the qualifying session to be allowed to start the race.
"Bill was out driving the 1200 and there wasn’t much time left, so Russell said ‘jump in the 240K and do your six laps now – I’ll sort it out with the stewards.’ What I didn’t know was that it had very little fuel in it because they’d been running the car as light as possible to set a time. It was also on slick tyres, we were about to get a sprinkle of rain and I’d never driven it before!
"So I just went all-out for six laps and I must say for a car of that size and weight it was fantastic to drive, with the independent rear suspension. I remember it had a lot of negative camber on the rear, too, a lot more than standard.
"It was fantastic across the top of the Mountain, even though I was on slicks and the track was slippery. The compliance and grip of that rear-end was outstanding and I just had a ball out there, it was more like a rally special stage. Then when the session ended and I was on my slowdown lap, it coughed and ran out of fuel going up the Mountain. That was cutting it fine to say the least!"
Out of the 10 starters in Class C the rotary Mazdas set the pace in dry qualifying, with the McLeod/Whiteford Datsun fifth fastest behind a trio of RX-3s and a Torana GTR. The quickest of the Mazdas had clocked 2 min 51.7 secs while Whiteford’s best effort in the Datsun was four seconds slower. If the track remained dry in the race, the 240K would be an also-ran.
Farrell led from the start with two Mazdas and Whiteford in the 240K hot on his heels. In the first round of scheduled pit stops at one third distance, Whiteford was replaced by McLeod who rejoined in third place. By half distance, though, the extremely fast Farrell/Reed RX-3 had built a massive two-lap lead over the two RX-3s and fourth-placed McLeod/Whiteford Datsun which were all on the same lap.
Brothers-in-arms. The last time the 240K hardtop and 1200 coupe raced together under the Datsun Racing Team banner in 1974 was the 500km final round of the ManChamps at Phillip Island. Bill Evans won Class A in the 1200 and McLeod finished second in Class C.
"On lap 91, McLeod came in for a scheduled stop and, with the time at 2.15 pm, Whiteford took over complete with fuel and, in a stroke of luck or genius or something – WET TYRES! At first it looked like the gamble was all astray, because the little rain that had been falling very quickly dried up," wrote Tom Naughton in his Racing Car News report.
"It was 3.15 when all hell broke loose. Some cars persisted but they couldn’t for long. Whiteford, who had been losing ground, suddenly gained dramatically as the gamble by the Datsun Team paid off. Everyone poured into the pits for wet tyres. Farrell’s lead was reduced by a lap and a bit as he exited first, while Whiteford breezed past the pits now in second.
"Two laps later Whiteford, driving like the master that he is, un-lapped himself when he out-braked Farrell at Murrays Corner. Farrell, who had no information from his pits, was a little suspicious of the Datsun, but thought that he had at least one more lap up – and he was right.
“But Whiteford was making ground, often at the rate of ten seconds a lap! In the next 18 laps he was to cut Farrell’s lead from a lap of 3 min 20 secs to 55 seconds and the quandary about fuel and driving time began to raise its head. With the race going to be longer than anyone had anticipated.
“But for Whiteford, luck was to decide the matter. On lap 128 (of 152), he came in with a puncture. It was a good stop for a new tyre but it increased Farrell’s lead to just on three minutes. The rain eased a little over the later stages, giving Farrell a slight edge over the still rapidly closing Datsun, surely one of Whiteford’s best drives in his many runs on the Mountain."
The 240K Hardtop race car looked a bit top-heavy compared to the road-going version, largely due to the smaller 13-inch diameter wheels used for racing.
Incredibly, after stopping to replace his punctured tyre, Whiteford had again carved huge chunks out of the Mazda’s three-minute lead in the remaining 25 laps, slashing the gap at an average of more than five seconds a lap down to just 47 seconds when the chequered flag fell. His unrelenting speed in such atrocious conditions left other drivers gobsmacked, including rally ace Bob Watson at the wheel of Bonhomme’s Torana GTR:
"We were going quite well in the race, passing many supposedly faster cars including at one stage race winners Kevin Bartlett and John Goss in a Falcon, but I was brought back to earth very smartly while driving across the fast tricky section at the top of Mount Panorama. Travelling at what I thought was good speed in the blinding rain, I was passed by the same ice cool Doug Whiteford as though my car was in second gear. We finished second in class (later third) behind the flying Datsun, in awe of Whiteford’s skill."
Philip George raced the 240K in several rounds of the 1975 ManChamps. This is how the car looked during practice at Bathurst in 1975 where it failed to qualify. By that stage John Roxburgh was starting to run his own cars displaying John Roxburgh Motors backing, as part of Datsun’s transition of factory support from racing to rallying.
It was an extraordinary performance but sadly not enough to ensure the future of the 240K race program, nor indeed the factory-backed Datsun Racing Team. With Nissan shifting its corporate motor sport focus to rallying in the second half of the 1970s, the transition from Datsun Racing Team to Datsun Rally Team occurred during the 1975 season.
Although the 240K continued to compete in private hands until early 1976, it was increasingly outclassed by the intense rivalry between the Mazda RX-3s and V6 Ford Capris in the 3.0 litre division and disappeared from the scene.
However, this rare ex-factory race car has since been rescued after surviving four decades in remarkably original condition and has now been restored to its authentic Group C specification. A fitting tribute to a maestro, a Datsun masterpiece and their masterful Bathurst drive.
