Description
Here we have a very rare (the only one left of just two produced) Samuri Sukati Coupe produced by the legendary Spike Anderson (of Super Samuri fame) and his Samuri Conversions based at the world famous Silverstone Race track. This monster runs a 240Z straight 6 engine with triple Webbers and a Capri 3. 0 rear diff' with LSD. Its sister car was dramatically written off at Silverstone by Clive Ricardson who managed to roll it 4. 5 times and set fire to it at Woodcote Corner. Although the car was a total loss Clive emerged unscathed through the hole left by the departed windscreen thanks to the roll cage and quick acting marshalls at the time. So this is a very special car with some documented race history. Unfortunately it never reached its full potential due to budget constraints and Spike concentrating on his 240Z'sThe specifications of which were with Datsun L24 engine in a 1200 Coupe. It had triple Webers and red, white and bronze paint scheme. It also had a Capri 3. 0 diff with LSD. Clive Ricardson raced CRY raced it at Silverstone, rolling it multiple times and wrecking it ‘C. R.'s PROJECTED season of special and super saloon racing with a 240Z-engined Datsun 1200 Sunny Coupe came to a violent and premature end at Woodcote Corner on the Silverstone club circuit last month. The immaculate Grand Prix Models with Samuri Conversions car, named Sukati Samuri, didn't take too kindly to losing the nearside rear wheel on the Woodcote apex on the first lap of this Tricentrol Super Saloon race. As the car went sideways, the errant wheel tucked itself under the car, acted as a launching ramp and fired 15-1/ 2-cwtᵂ of road/ race Datsun and Assistant Editor into the air. BARC marshall Bob Bigmead tells us the car rolled at least 4-1/ 2 times before coming to rest on the driver's side on the grass just past the marshall's post on the outside of Woodcote. We're told the engine had caught fire in mid-flight, though the pilot wasn't aware of it at the time, seeing only blurs of tarmac and Aley roll cage while contemplating his ultimate end. Marshals quickly extinguished the fire, while a totally unmarked C. R. scrambled through the empty windscreen aperture of the written-off Datsun. Thanks indeed to the efficient BARC marshals.
Untested, save for a tenth place after a spin on road tyres in a wet race at Mallory Park the previous week, memorable for total brake failure and a big moment at the Esses in practice, this mixture of heavy six-cylinder engine and short wheelbase handled appallingly. But if judged by the sheer hard work and midnight oil put into the project to date by Samuri's Spike Anderson and his mate Graham Smart, who runs GDS Flame Spraying welding business in Brackley, the car would have been made to work in the end.
