Sad to report that on Monday 17th January 2011, Dr Shinichiro SAKURAI - known as "Skyline no Chichi" ( 'Father Of The Skyline' ) in Japan - passed away aged 81 years. Cause of death was given as heart failure.
Dr SAKURAI joined what became the Prince Motor Co. ( itself formed from the ashes of the Nakajima and Tachikawa aircraft companies, through Fuji Sangyo and Fuji Precision Machine ) in 1952, and was the chief project manager on the ALSID-1 model, the first Prince Skyline saloon.
Dr SAKURAI was deeply involved with race related activities at Prince, especially in record breaking, touring cars and sports car racing, and headed the team which gained notoriety for taking on - and hounding - a privateer Porsche 904 GTS with a gaggle of hot-rodded S54 Skylines in the 1964 Japan GP. Even though the 'fox' got away that time, SAKURAI resolved to build cars that could take it on again, and win. The Prince R380-I sports racer - based on a Brabham BT8 - debuted in 1965, followed by a clutch of R380A-Is the following year was the result.
When Prince was forcibly merged with Nissan in 1966, SAKURAI's team at Murayama kept some degree of autonomy and continued with their race-related activities. The Nissan R380A-II, R380A-III, R381 V8 & V12, R382 and finally the unraced R383 were born within a relatively short period thereafter. The first truly new Skyline model to be launched after the merger with Nissan was the C10 'Hakosuka' ( 'box Skyline' ), with Dr SAKURAI and his team making sure that a special homologation model - the PGC10 'Skyline GT-R', its S20 twin cam engine derived from the DNA of the Prince GR8 race unit of the R380 - was produced, and went racing, closely followed by the 2-door hardtop KPGC10 model. The PGC10 and KPGC10 Skylines totally dominated Japanese touring car racing during the 1969~73 period. The 'Skyline GT-R' legend had been born, and the 'GT-R' emblem continues to be used to this day on Nissan's flagship sports model.
Working under Dr SAKURAI at that time were many of the people who would go on to work on the later generations of GT-R. One of these was a young Naganori ITOH, chassis designer on the C10 Skyline and later Project Chief on the R32 Skyline GT-R of 1989. Kozo WATANABE - Chief Designer on the R33 GT-R project - was another SAKURAI protege.
Dr SAKURAI went on to become head of Nissan's offshoot specialist car maker AUTECH, and was inducted into the Japanese Auto Industry Hall of Fame in 2005. He was always happy to give interviews, and appeared in many Japanese publications over the years. However he never overshadowed his team members, and was held in high regard by many who worked with him - especially his engineers and race drivers. He will be missed.
Thanks, Dr S.
Alan T.
